THE  CONGO 

AND  COASTS 
OF  AFRICA 


aCHARD  HARDING  DAVIS 


(3>of6) 


LIBRARY 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

SANTA  BARBARA 

PRESENTED   BY 
HILTON   P.   GOSS 


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THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 


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THE   CONGO   AND 
COASTS   OF  AFRICA 


BY 

RICHARD    HARDING   pAVIS,  F.R.G.S. 

AUTHOR  OF  "SOLDIERS  OF  FORTUNE,"  "THE  SCARLET  CAR,"  "WITH  BOTH 

ARMIES  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA,"  "  FARCES,"  "  THE  CUBAN 

AND  FORTO  RICAN  CAMPAIGNS " 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

FROM  PHOTOGRAPHS  BY  THE  AUTHOR 

AND  OTHERS 


CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S   SONS 
NEW    YORK     ::  ::    ::     1907 


CoPYuoar,  1907.  bt 
RICHARD  HARDING  DAVIS 

Copyright,  1907,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

Pabliahed  November,  1907 


TO 

CECIL    CLARK    DAVIS 

MY    FELLOW    VOYAGER    ALONG 
THE    COASTS    OF    AFMCA 


CONTENTS 

I  PAGE 

The  Coasters 3 

II 

My  Brother's  Keeper 32 

III 

The  Capital  oe  the  Congo 55 

IV 

Americans  in  the  Congo 93 

V 
Hunting  the  Hippo 118 

VI 
Old  Calabar 142 

VII 

Along  the  East  Coast 176 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Mr.  Davis  and  "Wood  Boys"  of  the  Congo     .     Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAGE 

Mes.  Davis  en  a  Borrowed  "Hammock,"  the  Local  Means 

OF  Transport  on  the  West  Coast lo 

A  White  Building,  that  Blazed  Like  the  Base   of  a 

Whitewashed  Stove  at  White  Heat     ....      23 

The  "Mammy  Chair"  is  Like  Those  Swings  You  See 

in  Public  Playgrounds 38 

A  Village  on  the  Kasai  River 43 

"Tenants"  of  Leopold,  Who  Claims  that  the  Congo 
Belongs  to  Him,  and  that  these  Native  People 

ARE  THERE  ONLY  AS  HiS  TENANTS 5a 

The  Facilities  for  Landing  at  Banana,  the   Port  of 

Entry  to  the  Congo,  are  Limited        ....      56 

"Prisoners"  of  the  State  in  Chains  at  Matadi     .      .      60 

Bush  Boys  in  the  Plaza  at  Matadi  Seeking  Shade      .      70 

The  Monument    in    Stanley    Park,   Erected,   Not  to 

Stanley,  but  to  Leopold  83 

The  Deliverance.  The  River  Raced  over  the  Deck 
to  a  Depth  of  Four  or  Five  Inches.  Between 
Her  Cabin  and  the  Wood-pile,  were  Stored  Fifty 

Human  Beings 86 

ix 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

FAcmo 

PAGE 

Thk  Native  Wife  of  a  Chef  de  Poste 90 

Engush  Missionaries,  and  Soue  of  Their  Charges      .  98 

The  Laboring    Man    Upon    Whom  the  American  Con- 
cessionaires Must  Depend 106 

Mr.  Davis  and  Native  "Boy,"  on  the  Kasai  River      .  128 

The  Hippopotamus  that  DID  NOT  KNOW  He  WAS  Dead    .      .  134 

The  Jesuit  Brothers  at  the  Woubau  Mission       .      .138 

There,  in  the  Surf,  We  Found  These  Tons  of  Mahogany, 

Pounding  against  Each  Other 152 

A  Loo  of  Mahogany  Jammed  in  the  Anchor  Chains    .  156 

The  Palace  of  the  King  of  the  Cameroons    .      .      .  160 

The  Home  of  the  Thirty  Qxra:ENS  of  King  Mango  Bell  164 

The  Mother  Superior  and  Sisters  of  St.  Joseph  and 

Their  Converts  at  Old  Calabar         .      .      .      .168 

The  Kroo  Boys  Sit,  not  on  the  Thwarts,  but  on  the 

Gunwales,  as  a  Woman  Rides  a  Side  Saddle        .  172 

Gomo  Visiting  in  Her  Private  Tram-car  at  Beira       .  182 

One-half   of   the   Street    Cleaning    Department   of 

Mozambique 190 

Custom  House,  Zanzqar 194 

Chain-gangs  of  Petty  Offenders  Outside  of  Zanzibar  198 

The  Ivory  on  the  Right,  Covered  only  with  Sack- 
ing, is  Ready  for  Shipment  to  Boston,  U.  S.  A.       .  202 

The  Late  Sultan  of  Zanzibar  in  His  State  Carriage  .  206 

X 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 
PAGE 
H.    S.    H.     HxinTD     BIN     MUHAMAD     BIN     SAID,     THE     LaTE 

Sultan  of  Zanzibak aio 

A  Gbkkan  "Factort"  at  Tanga,  the  Stoke  Below,  the 

Living  Apartments  Above 214 

soxn>an£se  soldieks    x7nder  a  german    officer    oxtt- 

SXDE  OF  TANGA 3X8 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS 
OF  AFRICA 


THE    COASTERS 

NO  matter  how  often  one  sets  out,  "for 
to  admire,  and  for  to  see,  for  to  be- 
hold this  world  so  wide,"  he  never  quite  gets 
over  being  surprised  at  the  erratic  manner  in 
which  "civilization"  distributes  itself;  at  the 
way  it  ignores  one  spot  upon  the  earth's  sur- 
face, and  upon  another,  several  thousand  miles 
away,  heaps  its  blessings  and  its  tyrannies. 
Having  settled  in  a  place  one  might  suppose 
the  "influences  of  civilization"  would  first  be 
felt  by  the  people  nearest  that  place.  Instead 
of  which,  a  number  of  men  go  forth  in  a  ship 
and  carry  civilization  as  far  away  from  that 
spot  as  the  winds  will  bear  them. 

When  a  stone  falls  in  a  pool  each  part  of 
each  ripple  is  equally  distant  from  the  spot 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

where  the  stone  fell;  but  if  the  stone  of  civiliza- 
tion were  to  have  fallen,  for  instance,  into  New 
Orleans,  equally  near  to  that  spot  we  would 
find  the  people  of  New  York  City  and  the 
naked  Indians  of  Yucatan.  Civilization  does 
not  radiate,  or  diffuse.  It  leaps;  and  as  to 
where  it  will  next  strike  it  is  as  independent 
as  forked  lightning.  During  hundreds  of  years 
it  passed  over  the  continent  of  Africa  to  settle 
only  at  its  northern  coast  line  and  its  most 
southern  cape;  and,  to-day,  it  has  given  Cuba 
all  of  its  benefits,  and  has  left  the  equally 
beautiful  island  of  Hayti,  only  fourteen  hours 
away,  sunk  in  fetish  worship  and  brutal 
ignorance. 

One  of  the  places  it  has  chosen  to  ignore  is 
the  West  Coast  of  Africa.  We  are  familiar 
with  the  Northern  Coast  and  South  Africa. 
We  know  all  about  Morocco  and  the  pictur- 
esque Raisuli,  Lord  Cromer,  and  Shepheard's 
Hotel.  The  Kimberley  Diamond  Mines,  the 
Boer  War,  Jameson's  Raid,  and  Cecil  Rhodes 
have  made  us  know  South  Africa,  and  on  the 
East  Coast  we  supply  Durban  with  buggies 
and  farm  wagons,  furniture  from  Grand 
Rapids,  and,  although  we  have  nothing  against 


THE  COASTERS 

Durban,  breakfast  food  and  canned  meats. 
g  We  know  Victoria  Falls,  because  they  have 
eclipsed  our  own  Niagara  Falls,  and  Zanzibar, 
farther  up  the  Coast,  is  familiar  through  comic 
operas  and  rag-time.  Of  itself,  the  Cape  to 
Cairo  Railroad  would  make  the  East  Coast 
known  to  us.  But  the  West  Coast  still  means 
that  distant  shore  from  whence  the  "first 
families"  of  Boston,  Bristol  and  New  Orleans 
exported  slaves.  Now,  for  our  soap  and  our 
salad,  the  West  Coast  supplies  palm  oil  and 
kernel  oil,  and  for  automobile  tires,  rubber. 
But  still  to  it  there  cling  the  mystery,  the 
hazard,  the  cruelty  of  those  earlier  times.  It 
is  not  of  palm  oil  and  rubber  one  thinks  when 
he  reads  on  the  ship's  itinerary,  *'the  Gold 
Coast,  the  Ivory  Coast,  the  Bight  of  Benin, 
and  Old  Calabar." 

One  of  the  strange  leaps  made  by  civilization 
is  from  Southampton  to  Cape  Town,  and  one 
of  its  strangest  ironies  is  in  its  ignoring  all  the 
six  thousand  miles  of  coast  line  that  lies  be- 
tween. Nowadays,  in  winter  time,  the  Eng- 
lish, flying  from  the  damp  cold  of  London, 
go  to  Cape  Town  as  unconcernedly  as  to  the 
Riviera.     They  travel  in  great  seagoing  hotels, 

5 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

on  which  they  play  cricket,  and  dress  for 
dinner.  Of  the  damp,  fever-driven  coast  line 
past  which,  in  splendid  ease,  they  are  travelling, 
save  for  the  tall  peaks  of  Teneriffe  and  Cape 
Verde,  they  know  nothing. 

When  last  Mrs.  Davis  and  I  made  that 
voyage  from  Southampton,  the  decks  were 
crowded  chiefly  with  those  English  whose 
faces  are  familiar  at  the  Savoy  and  the  Ritz, 
and  who,  within  an  hour,  had  settled  down 
to  seventeen  days  of  uninterrupted  bridge, 
with,  before  them,  the  prospect  on  landing 
of  the  luxury  of  the  Mount  Nelson  and  the 
hospitalities  of  Government  House.  When, 
the  other  day,  we  again  left  Southampton, 
that  former  departure  came  back  in  strange 
contrast.  It  emphasized  that  this  time  we 
are  not  accompanying  civilization  on  one  of 
her  flying  leaps.  Instead,  now,  we  are  going 
down  to  the  sea  in  ships  with  the  vortrekkers 
of  civilization,  those  who  are  making  the  ways 
straight;  who,  in  a  few  weeks,  will  be  leaving 
us  to  lose  themselves  in  great  forests,  who  clear 
the  paths  of  noisome  jungles  where  the  sun 
seldom  penetrates,  who  sit  in  sun-baked 
"factories,"  as  they  call  their  trading  houses, 


THE  COASTERS 

measuring  life  by  steamer  days,  who  preach  the 
Gospel  to  the  cannibals  of  the  Congo,  whose 
voices  are  the  voices  of  those  calling  in  the 
wilderness. 

As  our  tender  came  alongside  the  Bruxelles- 
ville  2iX.  Southampton,  we  saw  at  the  winch 
Kroo  boys  of  the  Ivory  Coast;  leaning  over  the 
rail  the  Sceurs  Blanches  of  the  Congo,  robed, 
although  the  cold  was  bitter  and  the  decks 
black  with  soot-stained  snow,  all  in  white; 
missionaries  with  long  beards,  a  bishop  in  a 
purple  biretta,  and  innumerable  Belgian  officers 
shivering  in  their  cloaks  and  wearing  the  blue 
ribbon  and  silver  star  that  tells  of  three  years 
of  service  along  the  Equator.  This  time  our 
fellow  passengers  are  no  pleasure-seekers,  no 
Cook's  tourists  sailing  south  to  avoid  a  rigorous 
winter.  They  have  squeezed  the  last  minute 
out  of  their  leave,  and  they  are  going  back  to 
the  station,  to  the  factory,  to  the  mission,  to  the 
barracks.  They  call  themselves  "Coasters," 
and  they  inhabit  a  world  all  to  themselves. 
In  square  miles,  it  is  a  very  big  world,  but  it  is 
one  of  those  places  civilization  has  skipped. 

Nearly  every  one  of  our  passengers  from 
Antwerp  or   Southampton   knows  that  if  he 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

keeps  his  contract,  and  does  not  die,  it  will 
be  three  years  before  he  again  sees  his  home. 
So  our  departure  was  not  enlivening,  and,  in 
the  smoking-room,  the  exiles  prepared  us  for 
lonely  ports  of  call,  for  sickening  heat,  for 
swarming  multitudes  of  blacks. 

In  consequence,  when  we  passed  Finisterre, 
Spain,  which  from  New  York  seems  almost 
a  foreign  country,  was  a  near  neighbor,  a  dear 
friend.  And  the  Island  of  TenerifTe  was  an 
anticlimax.  It  was  as  though  by  a  trick  of  the 
compass  we  had  been  sailing  southwest  and 
were  entering  the  friendly  harbor  of  Ponce  or 
Havana. 

Santa  Cruz,  the  port  town  of  Teneriflfe,  like 
La  Guayra,  rises  at  the  base  of  great  hills.  It 
is  a  smiling,  bright-colored,  red-roofed,  typical 
Spanish  town.  The  hills  about  it  mount  in 
innumerable  terraces  planted  with  fruits  and 
vegetables,  and  from  many  of  these  houses  on 
the  hills,  should  the  owner  step  hurriedly  out 
of  his  front  door,  he  would  land  upon  the  roof 
of  his  nearest  neighbor.  Back  of  this  first 
chain  of  hills  are  broad  farming  lands  and 
plateaus  from  which  Barcelona  and  London 
are  fed  with  the  earliest  and  the  most  tender 

8 


THE  COASTERS 

of  potatoes  that  appear  in  England  at  the  same 
time  Bermuda  potatoes  are  being  printed  in 
big  letters  on  the  bills  of  fare  along  Broadway. 
Santa  Cruz  itself  supplies  passing  steamers 
with  coal,  and  passengers  with  lace  work  and 
post  cards;  and  to  the  English  in  search  of 
sunshine,  with  a  rival  to  Madeira.  It  should 
be  a  successful  rival,  for  it  is  a  charming  place, 
and  on  the  day  we  were  there  the  thermometer 
was  at  72°,  and  every  one  was  complaining  of 
the  cruel  severity  of  the  winter.  In  Santa 
Cruz  one  who  knows  Spanish  America  has 
but  to  shut  his  eyes  and  imagine  himself 
back  in  Santiago  de  Cuba  or  Caracas.  There 
are  the  same  charming  plazas,  the  yellow 
churches  and  towered  cathedral,  the  long  iron- 
barred  windows,  glimpses  through  marble- 
paved  halls  of  cool  patios,  the  same  open  shops 
one  finds  in  Obispo  and  O'Reilly  Streets,  the 
idle  officers  with  smart  uniforms  and  swinging 
swords  in  front  of  cafes  killing  time  and 
digestion  with  sweet  drinks,  and  over  the  gar- 
den walls  great  bunches  of  purple  and  scarlet 
flowers  and  sheltering  palms.  The  show  place 
in  Santa  Cruz  is  the  church  in  which  are  stored 
the  relics  of  the  sea-fight  in  which,  as  a  young 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

man,  Nelson  lost  his  arm  and  England  also 
lost  two  battlcflags.  As  she  is  not  often  care- 
less in  that  respect,  it  is  a  surprise  to  find,  in 
this  tiny  tucked-away  little  island,  what  you 
will  not  see  in  any  of  the  show  places  of  the 
world.  They  tell  in  Santa  Cruz  that  one  night 
an  English  middy,  single-handed,  recaptured 
the  captured  flags  and  carried  them  trium- 
phantly to  his  battleship.  He  expected  at  the 
least  a  K.  C.  B.,  and  when  the  flags,  with  a 
squad  of  British  marines  as  a  guard  of  honor, 
were  solemnly  replaced  in  the  church,  and  the 
middy  himself  was  sent  upon  a  tour  of  apology 
to  the  bishop,  the  governor,  the  commandant 
of  the  fortress,  the  alcalde,  the  collector  of 
customs,  and  the  captain  of  the  port,  he  de- 
clared that  monarchies  were  ungrateful.  The 
other  objects  of  interest  in  Teneriffe  are 
camels,  which  in  the  interior  of  the  island  are 
common  beasts  of  burden,  and  which  appear- 
ing suddenly  around  a  turn  would  frighten  any 
automobile;  and  the  fact  that  in  Teneriffe  the 
fashion  in  women's  hats  never  changes.  They 
are  very  funny,  flat  straw  hats;  like  childen's 
sailor  hats.  They  need  only  "f/.  S.  S.  Iowa" 
on  the  band  to  be  quite  familiar.     Their  secret 


THE  COASTERS 

is  that  they  arc  built  to  support  baskets  and 
buckets  of  water,  and  that  concealed  in  each  is 
a  heavy  pad. 

After  Teneriffe  the  destination  of  every  one 
on  board  is  as  irrevocably  fixed  as  though  the 
ship  were  a  government  transport.  We  are 
all  going  to  the  West  Coast  or  to  the  Congo. 
Should  you  wish  to  continue  on  to  Cape  Town 
along  the  South  Coast,  as  they  call  the  vast 
territory  from  Lagos  to  Cape  Town,  although 
there  is  an  irregular,  a  very  irregular,  service 
to  the  Cape,  you  could  as  quickly  reach  it  by 
going  on  to  the  Congo,  returning  all  the  way  to 
Southampton,  and  again  starting  on  the  direct 
line  south. 

It  is  as  though  a  line  of  steamers  running 
down  our  coast  to  Florida  would  not  continue 
on  along  the  South  Coast  to  New  Orleans 
and  Galveston,  and  as  though  no  line  of 
steamers  came  from  New  Orleans  and  Gal- 
veston to  meet  the  steamers  of  the  East 
Coast. 

In  consequence,  the  West  Coast  of  Africa, 
cut  off  by  lack  of  communication  from  the 
south,  divorced  from  the  north  by  the  Desert 
of  Sahara,  lies  in  the  steaming  heat  of  the 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

Equator  today  as  it  did  a  thousand  years  ago, 
in  inaccessible,  inhospitable  isolation. 

Two  elements  have  helped  to  preserve  this 
isolation:  the  fever  that  rises  from  its 
swamps  and  lagoons,  and  the  surf  that  thun- 
ders upon  the  shore.  In  considering  the 
stunted  development  of  the  West  Coast,  these 
two  elements  must  be  kept  in  mind — the  sick- 
ness that  strikes  at  sunset  and  by  sunrise 
leaves  the  victim  dead,  and  the  monster  waves 
that  rush  booming  like  cannon  at  the  beach, 
churning  the  sandy  bottom  beneath,  and 
hurling  aside  the  great  canoes  as  a  man  tosses 
a  cigarette.  The  clerk  who  signs  the  three- 
year  contract  to  work  on  the  West  Coast  en- 
lists against  a  greater  chance  of  death  than 
the  soldier  who  enlists  to  fight  only  bullets; 
and  every  box,  puncheon,  or  barrel  that  the 
trader  sends  in  a  canoe  through  the  surf  is 
insured  against  its  never  reaching,  as  the  case 
may  be,  the  shore  or  the  ship's  side. 

The  surf  and  the  fever  are  the  Minotaurs 
of  the  West  Coast,  and  in  the  year  there  is  not 
a  day  passes  that  they  do  not  claim  and  receive 
their  tribute  in  merchandise  and  human  life. 
Said  an  old  Coaster  to  me,  pointing  at  the 


THE  COASTERS 

harbor  of  Grand  Bassam:  "Fve  seen  just  as 
much  cargo  lost  overboard  in  that  surf  as  Fve 
seen  shipped  to  Europe."  One  constantly 
wonders  how  the  Coasters  find  it  good 
enough.  How,  since  1550,  when  the  Portu- 
guese began  trading,  it  has  been  possible  to 
find  men  willing  to  fill  the  places  of  those  who 
died.  But,  in  spite  of  the  early  massacres  by 
the  natives,  in  spite  of  attacks  by  wild  beasts, 
in  spite  of  pirate  raids,  of  desolating  plagues 
and  epidemics,  of  wars  with  other  white  men, 
of  damp  heat  and  sudden  sickness,  there  were 
men  who  patiently  rebuilt  the  forts  and 
factories,  fought  the  surf  with  great  break- 
waters, cleared  breathing  spaces  in  the  jungle, 
and  with  the  aid  of  quinine  for  themselves,  and 
bad  gin  for  the  natives,  have  held  their  own. 
Except  for  the  trade  goods  it  never  would  be 
held.  It  is  a  country  where  the  pay  is  cruelly 
inadequate,  where  but  few  horses,  sheep,  or 
cattle  can  exist,  where  the  natives  are  unbe- 
lievably lazy  and  insolent,  and  where,  while 
there  is  no  society  of  congenial  spirits,  there  is 
a  superabundance  of  animal  and  insect  pests. 
Still,  so  great  are  gold,  ivory,  and  rubber,  and 

so  many  are  the  men  who  will  take  big  chances 

13 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

for  little  pay,  that  every  foot  of  the  West  Coast 
is  preempted.  As  the  ship  rolls  along,  for 
hours  from  the  rail  you  see  miles  and  miles  of 
steaming  yellow  sand  and  misty  swamp  where 
as  yet  no  white  man  has  set  his  foot.  But  in 
the  real  estate  office  of  Europe  some  Power 
claims  the  right  to  "protect"  that  swamp; 
some  treaty  is  filed  as  a  title-deed. 

As  the  Powers  finally  arranged  it,  the  map 
of  the  West  Coast  is  like  a  mosaic,  like  the 
edge  of  a  badly  constructed  patchwork  quilt. 
In  trading  along  the  West  Coast  a  man  can 
find  use  for  five  European  languages,  and  he 
can  use  a  new  one  at  each  port  of  call. 

To  the  north,  the  West  Coast  begins  with 
Cape  Verde,  which  is  Spanish.  It  is  followed 
by  Senegal,  which  is  French;  but  into  Senegal 
is  tucked  "a  thin  red  line"  of  British  territory 
called  Gambia.  Senegal  closes  in  again  around 
Gambia,  and  is  at  once  blocked  to  the  south 
by  the  three-cornered  patch  which  belongs  to 
Portugal.  This  is  followed  by  French  Guinea 
down  to  another  British  red  spot.  Sierra  Leone, 
which  meets  Liberia,  the  republic  of  negro 
emigrants  from  the  United  States.  South  of 
Liberia  is  the  French  Ivory  Coast,  then  the 

14 


THE  COASTERS 

English  Gold  Coast;  Togo,  which  is  German; 
Dahomey,  which  is  French;  Lagos  and  South- 
ern Nigeria,  which  again  are  English;  Fer- 
nando Po,  which  is  Spanish,  and  the  German 
Cameroons. 

The  coast  line  of  these  protectorates  and 
colonies  gives  no  idea  of  the  extent  of  their 
hinterland,  which  spreads  back  into  the  Sahara, 
the  Niger  basin,  and  the  Soudan.  Sierra 
Leone,  one  of  the  smallest  of  them,  is  as  large 
as  Maine;  Liberia,  where  the  emigrants  still 
keep  up  the  tradition  of  the  United  States  by 
talking  like  end  men,  is  as  large  as  the  State 
of  New  York;  two  other  colonies,  Senegal  and 
Nigeria,  together  are  135,000  square  miles 
larger  than  the  combined  square  miles  of  all 
of  our  Atlantic  States  from  Maine  to  Florida 
and  including  both.  To  partition  finally 
among  the  Powers  this  strip  of  death  and 
disease,  of  uncountable  wealth,  of  unnamed 
horrors  and  cruelties,  has  taken  many  hun- 
dreds of  years,  has  brought  to  the  black  man 
every  misery  that  can  be  inflicted  upon  a 
human  being,  and  to  thousands  of  white  men, 
death  and  degradation,  or  great  wealth. 

The  raids  made  upon  the  West  Coast  to 

IS 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

obtain  slaves  began  in  the  fifteenth  century 
with  the  discovery  of  the  West  Indies,  and  it 
was  to  spare  the  natives  of  these  islands,  who 
were  unused  and  unfitted  for  manual  labor 
and  who  in  consequence  were  cruelly  treated 
by  the  Spaniards,  that  Las  Casas,  the  Bishop 
of  Chiapa,  first  imported  slaves  from  West 
Africa.  He  lived  to  see  them  suffer  so  much 
more  terribly  than  had  the  Indians  who  first 
obtained  his  sympathy,  that  even  to  his 
eightieth  year  he  pleaded  with  the  Pope  and 
the  King  of  Spain  to  undo  the  wrong  he  had 
begun.  But  the  tide  had  set  west,  and  Las 
Casas  might  as  well  have  tried  to  stop  the 
Trades.  In  1800  Wilberforce  stated  in  the 
House  of  Commons  that  at  that  time  British 
vessels  were  carrying  each  year  to  the  Indies 
and  the  American  colonies  38,000  slaves,  and 
when  he  spoke  the  traffic  had  been  going  on 
for  two  hundred  and  fifty  years.  After  the 
Treaty  of  Utrecht,  Queen  Anne  congratulated 
her  Peers  on  the  terms  of  the  treaty  which  gave 
to  England  "the  fortress  of  Gibraltar,  the 
Island  of  Minorca,  and  the  monopoly  in  the 
slave  trade  for  thirty  years,"  or,  as  it  was 

called,  the  asiento  (contract).     This  was  con- 

16 


THE  COASTERS 

sidered  so  good  an  investment  that  Philip  V 
of  Spain  took  up  one-quarter  of  the  common 
stock,  and  good  Queen  Anne  reserved  another 
quarter,  which  later  she  divided  among  her 
ladies.  But  for  a  time  she  and  her  cousin  of 
Spain  were  the  two  largest  slave  merchants  in 
the  world.  The  point  of  view  of  those  then 
engaged  in  the  slave  trade  is  very  interesting. 
When  Queen  Elizabeth  sent  Admiral  Hawkins 
slave-hunting,  she  presented  him  with  a  ship, 
named,  with  startling  lack  of  moral  perception, 
after  the  Man  of  Sorrows.  In  a  book  on  the 
slave  trade  I  picked  up  at  Sierra  Leone  there 
is  the  diary  of  an  officer  who  accompanied 
Hawkins.  "After,"  he  writes,  "going  every 
day  on  shore  to  take  the  inhabitants  by  burning 
and  despoiling  of  their  towns,"  the  ship  was 
becalmed.  "But,"  he  adds  gratefully,  "the 
Almighty  God,  who  never  suffereth  his  elect  to 
perish,  sent  us  the  breeze." 

The  slave  book  shows  that  as  late  as  1780 
others  of  the  "elect"  of  our  own  South  were 
publishing  advertisements  like  this,  which  is 
one  of  the  shortest  and  mildest.  It  is  from  a 
Virginia  newspaper:  "The  said  fellow  is  out- 
lawed, and  I  will  give  ten  pounds  reward  for 

17 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

his  head  severed  from  his  body,  or  forty 
shillings  if  brought  alive." 

At  about  this  same  time  an  English  captain 
threw  overboard,  chained  together,  one  hun- 
dred and  thirty  sick  slaves.  He  claimed  that 
had  he  not  done  so  the  ship's  company  would 
have  also  sickened  and  died,  and  the  ship 
would  have  been  lost,  and  that,  therefore,  the 
insurance  companies  should  pay  for  the  slaves. 
The  jury  agreed  with  him,  and  the  Solicitor- 
General  said:  "What  is  all  this  declamation 
about  human  beings!  This  is  a  case  of  chat- 
tels or  goods.  It  is  really  so — it  is  the  case  of 
throwing  over  goods.  For  the  purpose — the 
purpose  of  the  insurance,  they  are  goods  and 
property;  whether  right  or  wrong,  we  have 
nothing  to  do  with  it."  In  1807  England  de- 
clared the  slave  trade  illegal.  A  year  later  the 
United  States  followed  suit,  but  although  on 
the  seas  her  frigates  chased  the  slavers,  on 
shore  a  part  of  our  people  continued  to  hold 
slaves,  until  the  Civil  War  rescued  both  them 
and  the  slaves. 

As  early  as  171 8  Raynal  and  Diderot  esti- 
mated that  up  to  that  time  there  had  been 

exported  from  Africa  to  the  North  and  South 

18 


THE  COASTERS 

Americas  nine  million  slaves.  Our  own  his- 
torian, Bancroft,  calculated  that  in  the  eigh- 
teenth century  the  English  alone  imported 
to  the  Americas  three  million  slaves,  while 
another  2,500,000  purchased  or  kidnapped  on 
the  West  Coast  were  lost  in  the  surf,  or  on 
the  voyage  thrown  into  the  sea.  For  that 
number  Bancroft  places  the  gross  returns  as 
not  far  from  four  hundred  millions  of  dollars. 
All  this  is  history,  and  to  the  reader  famil- 
iar, but  I  do  not  apologize  for  reviewing  it 
here,  as  without  the  background  of  the  slave 
trade,  the  West  Coast,  as  it  is  to-day,  is  difficult 
to  understand.  As  we  have  seen,  to  kings,  to 
chartered  "Merchant  Adventurers,"  to  the 
cotton  planters  of  the  West  Indies  and  of  our 
South,  and  to  the  men  of  the  North  who  traded 
in  black  ivory,  the  West  Coast  gave  vast 
fortunes.  The  price  was  the  lives  of  millions 
of  slaves.  And  to-day  it  almost  seems  as 
though  the  sins  of  the  fathers  were  being 
visited  upon  the  children;  as  though  the  juju 
of  the  African,  under  the  spell  of  which  his 
enemies  languish  and  die,  has  been  cast  upon 
the  white  man.    We  have  to  look  only  at  home. 

In  the  millions  of  dead,  and  in  the  misery  of 

19 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

the  Civil  War,  and  to-day  in  race  hatred,  in 
race  riots,  in  monstrous  crimes  and  as  mon- 
strous lynchings,  we  seem  to  see  the  fetish  of 
the  West  Coast,  the  curse,  falHng  upon  the 
children  to  the  third  and  fourth  generation  of 
the  million  slaves  that  were  thrown,  shackled, 
into  the  sea. 

The  first  mention  in  history  of  Sierra  Leone 
is  when  in  480  b.  c,  Hanno,  the  Carthaginian, 
anchored  at  night  in  its  harbor,  and  then 
owing  to  "fires  in  the  forests,  the  beating  of 
drums,  and  strange  cries  that  issued  from  the 
bushes,"  before  daylight  hastened  away.  We 
now  skip  nineteen  hundred  years.  This  is 
something  of  a  gap,  but  except  for  the  sketchy 
description  given  us  by  Hanno  of  the  place, 
and  his  one  gaudy  night  there,  Sierra  Leone 
until  the  fifteenth  century  utterly  disappears 
from  the  knowledge  of  man.  Happy  is  the 
country  without  a  history! 

Nineteen  hundred  years  having  now  sup- 
posed to  elapse,  the  second  act  begins  with  De 
Cintra,  who  came  in  search  of  slaves,  and  in- 
stead gave  the  place  its  name.  Because  of  the 
roaring  of  the  wind  around  the  peak  that  rises 
over  the  harbor  he  called  it  the  Lion  Mountain. 


THE  COASTERS 

After  the  fifteenth  century,  in  a  succession  of 
failures,  five  different  companies  of  "Royal 
Adventurers'*  were  chartered  to  trade  with  her 
people,  and,  when  convenient,  to  kidnap  them; 
pirates  in  turn  kidnapped  the  British  governor, 
the  French  and  Dutch  were  always  at  war  with 
the  settlement,  and  native  raids,  epidemics, 
and  fevers  were  continuous.  The  history  of 
Sierra  Leone  is  the  history  of  every  other  colony 
along  the  West  Coast,  with  the  difference  that 
it  became  a  colony  by  purchase,  and  was  not, 
as  were  the  others,  a  trading  station  gradually 
converted  ino  a  colony.  During  the  war  in 
America,  Great  Britain  offered  freedom  to  all 
slaves  that  would  fight  for  her,  and,  after  the 
war,  these  freed  slaves  were  conveyed  on  ships 
of  war  to  London,  where  they  were  soon 
destitute.  They  appealed  to  the  great  friend 
of  the  slave  in  those  days,  Granville  Sharp,  and 
he  with  others  shipped  them  to  Sierra  Leone, 
to  establish,  with  the  aid  of  some  white  emi- 
grants, an  independent  colony,  which  was  to 
be  a  refuge  and  sanctuary  for  others  like  them- 
selves. Liberia,  which  was  the  gift  of  phi- 
lanthropists of  Baltimore  to  American  freed 
slaves,  was,  no  doubt,  inspired  by  this  earlier 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

effort.  The  colony  became  a  refuge  for  slaves 
from  every  part  of  the  Coast,  the  West  Indies 
and  Nova  Scotia,  and  to-day  in  that  one  colony 
there  are  spoken  sixty  different  coast  dialects 
and  those  of  the  hinterland. 

Sierra  Leone,  as  originally  purchased  in 
1786,  consisted  of  twenty  square  miles,  for 
which  among  other  articles  of  equal  value 
King  Naimbanna  received  a  "crimson  satin 
embroidered  waistcoat,  one  puncheon  of  rum, 
ten  pounds  of  beads,  two  cheeses,  one  box  of 
smoking  pipes,  a  mock  diamond  ring,  and  a 
tierce  of  pork." 

What  first  impressed  me  about  Sierra  Leone 
was  the  heat.  It  does  not  permit  one  to 
give  his  attention  wholly  to  anything  else.  I 
always  have  maintained  that  the  hottest 
place  on  earth  is  New  York,  and  I  have  been 
in  other  places  with  more  than  a  local  reputa- 
tion for  heat;  some  along  the  Equator,  Lou- 
ren^o  Marquez,  which  is  only  prevented  from 
being  an  earthen  oven  because  it  is  a  swamp; 
the  Red  Sea,  with  a  following  breeze,  and  from 
both  shores  the  baked  heat  of  the  desert,  and 
Nagasaki,  on  a  rainy  day  in  midsummer. 

But  New  York  in  August  radiating  stored- 


THE  COASTERS 

up  heat  from  iron-framed  buildings,  with  the 
foul,  dead  air  shut  in  by  the  skyscrapers,  with 
a  humidity  that  makes  you  think  you  are 
breathing  through  a  steam-heated  sponge,  is 
as  near  the  lower  regions  as  I  hope  any  of  us 
will  go.  And  yet  Sierra  Leone  is  no  mean 
competitor. 

We  climbed  the  moss-covered  steps  to  the 
quay  to  face  a  great  white  building  that  blazed 
like  the  base  of  a  whitewashed  stove  at  white 
heat.  Before  it  were  some  rusty  cannon  and  a 
canoe  cut  out  of  a  single  tree,  and,  seated  upon 
it  selling  fruit  and  sun-dried  fish,  some  native 
women,  naked  to  the  waist,  their  bodies 
streaming  with  palm  oil  and  sweat.  At  the 
same  moment  something  struck  me  a  blow  on 
the  top  of  the  head,  at  the  base  of  the  spine  and 
between  the  shoulder  blades,  and  the  ebony 
ladies  and  the  white  "factory"  were  burnt  up 
in  a  scroll  of  flame. 

I  heard  myself  in  a  far-away  voice  asking 
where  one  could  buy  a  sun  helmet  and  a  white 
umbrella,  and  until  I  was  under  their  protec- 
tion. Sierra  Leone  interested  me  no  more. 

One   sees   more   different   kinds   of  black 

people  in  Sierra  Leone  than  in  any  other  port 

23 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

along  the  Coast;  Senegalese  and  Senegambians, 
Kroo  boys,  Liberians,  naked  bush  boys  bearing 
great  burdens  from  the  forests,  domestic  slaves 
in  fez  and  colored  linen  livery,  carrying  ham- 
mocks swung  from  under  a  canopy,  the  local 
electric  hansom,  soldiers  of  the  W.  A.  A.  F., 
the  West  African  Frontier  Force,  in  Zouave 
uniform  of  scarlet  and  khaki,  with  bare  legs; 
Arabs  from  as  far  in  the  interior  as  Timbuctu, 
yellow  in  face  and  in  long  silken  robes;  big  fat 
"mammies"  in  well-washed  linen  like  the 
washerwomen  of  Jamaica,  each  balancing  on 
her  head  her  tightly  rolled  umbrella,  and  in 
the  gardens  slim  young  girls,  with  only  a  strip 
of  blue  and  white  linen  from  the  waist  to  the 
knees,  lithe,  erect,  with  glistening  teeth  and 
eyes,  and  their  sisters,  after  two  years  in  the 
mission  schools,  demurely  and  correctly  dressed 
like  British  school  marms.  Sierra  Leone  has 
all  the  hall  marks  of  the  crown  colony  of  the 
tropics;  good  wharfs,  clean  streets,  innumer- 
able churches,  public  schools  operated  by  the 
government  as  well  as  many  others  run  by 
American  and  English  missions,  a  club  where 
the    white  "mammies,"  as    all    women    are 

called,    and    the    white    officers — for    Sierra 

24 


THE  COASTERS 

Leone  is  a  coaling  station  on  the  Cape  route  to 
India,  and  is  garrisoned  accordingly — play 
croquet,  and  bowl  into  a  net. 

When  the  officers  are  not  bowling  they  are 
tramping  into  the  hinterland  after  tribes  on 
the  warpath  from  Liberia,  and  coming  back, 
perhaps  wounded  or  racked  with  fever,  or 
perhaps  they  do  not  come  back.  On  the  day 
we  landed  they  had  just  buried  one  of  the 
officers.  On  Saturday  afternoon  he  had  been 
playing  tennis,  during  the  night  the  fever 
claimed  him,  and  Sunday  night  he  was  dead. 

That  night  as  we  pulled  out  to  the  steamer 
there  came  toward  us  in  black  silhouette 
against  the  sun,  setting  blood-red  into  the 
lagoon,  two  great  canoes.  They  were  coming 
from  up  the  river  piled  high  with  fruit  and 
bark,  with  the  women  and  children  lying  hud- 
dled in  the  high  bow  and  stern,  while  amid- 
ships the  twelve  men  at  the  oars  strained  and 
struggled  until  we  saw  every  muscle  rise  under 
the  black  skin. 

As  their  stroke  slackened,  the  man  in  the 
bow  with  the  tom-tom  beat  more  savagely 
upon  it,  and  shouted  to  them  in  shrill  sharp 

cries.     Their  eyes  shone,  their  teeth  clenched, 

25 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

the  sweat  streamed  from  their  naked  bodies. 
They  might  have  been  slaves  chained  to  the 
thwarts  of  a  trireme. 

Just  ahead  of  them  lay  at  anchor  the  only 
other  ship  beside  our  own  in  port,  a  two- 
masted  schooner,  the  Gladys  E.  Wilderiy  out 
of  Boston.  Her  captain  leaned  upon  the  rail 
smoking  his  cigar,  his  shirt-sleeves  held  up 
with  pink  elastics,  on  the  back  of  his  head  a 
derby  hat.  As  the  rowers  passed  under  his 
bows  he  looked  critically  at  the  streaming 
black  bodies  and  spat  meditatively  into  the 
water.  His  own  father  could  have  had  them 
between  decks  as  cargo.  Now  for  the  petro- 
leum and  lumber  he  brings  from  Massachu- 
setts to  Sierra  Leone  he  returns  in  ballast. 

Because  her  lines  were  so  home-like  and  her 
captain  came  from  Cape  Cod,  we  wanted  to 
call  on  the  Gladys  E.  Wild  en,  but  our  own 
captain  had  different  views,  and  the  two  ships 
passed  in  the  night,  and  the  man  from  Boston 
never  will  know  that  two  folks  from  home 
were  burning  signals  to  him. 

Because  our  next  port  of  call.  Grand  Bas- 

sam,  is  the  chief  port  of  the  French  Ivory 

Coast,  which  is  125,000  square  miles  in  ex- 

26 


THE  COASTERS 

tent,  we  expected  quite  a  flourishing  seaport. 
Instead,  Grand  Bassam  was  a  bank  of  yellow 
sand,  a  dozen  bungalows  in  a  line,  a  few  wind- 
blown cocoanut  palms,  an  iron  pier,  and  a 
French  flag.  Beyond  the  cocoanut  palms  we 
could  see  a  great  lagoon,  and  each  minute  a 
wave  leaped  roaring  upon  the  yellow  sand- 
bank and  tried  to  hurl  itself  across  it,  eating 
up  the  bungalows  on  its  way,  into  the  quiet 
waters  of  the  lake.  Each  time  we  were  sure 
it  would  succeed,  but  the  yellow  bank  stood 
like  rock,  and,  beaten  back,  the  wave  would 
rise  in  white  spray  to  the  height  of  a  three- 
story  house,  hang  glistening  in  the  sun  and 
then,  with  the  crash  of  a  falling  wall,  tumble 
at  the  feet  of  the  bungalows. 

We  stopped  at  Grand  Bassam  to  put  ashore 
a  young  English  girl  who  had  come  out  to 
join  her  husband.  His  factory  is  a  two  days* 
launch  ride  up  the  lagoon,  and  the  only  other 
white  woman  near  it  does  not  speak  English. 
Her  husband  had  wished  her,  for  her  health's 
sake,  to  stay  in  his  home  near  London,  but  her 
first  baby  had  just  died,  and  against  his  un- 
selfish wishes,  and  the  advice  of  his  partner, 
she  had  at  once  set  out  to  join  him.     She  was 

37 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

a  very  pretty,  sad,  unsmiling  young  wife,  and 
she  spoke  only  to  ask  her  husband's  partner 
questions  about  the  new  home.  His  answers, 
while  they  did  not  seem  to  daunt  her,  made 
every  one  else  at  the  table  wish  she  had  re- 
mained safely  in  her  London  suburb. 

Through  our  glasses  we  all  watched  her 
husband  lowered  from  the  iron  pier  into  a 
canoe  and  come  riding  the  great  waves  to 
meet  her. 

The  Kroo  boys  flashed  their  trident-shaped 
paddles  and  sang  and  shouted  wildly,  but  he 
sat  with  his  sun  helmet  pulled  over  his  eyes 
staring  down  into  the  bottom  of  the  boat; 
while  at  his  elbow,  another  sun  helmet  told 
him  yes,  that  now  he  could  make  out  the 
partner,  and  that,  judging  by  the  photograph, 
that  must  be  She  in  white  under  the  bridge. 

The  husband  and  the  young  wife  were 
swung  together  over  the  side  to  the  lifting 
waves  in  a  two-seated  "mammy  chair,"  like 
one  of  those  vis-a-vis  swings  you  see  in  public 
playgrounds  and  picnic  groves,  and  they  car- 
ried with  them,  as  a  gift  from  Captain  Burton, 
a  fast  melting  lump  of  ice,  the  last  piece  of 

fresh  meat  they  will  taste  in  many  a  day,  and 

28 


The  "Mammy  Chair"  Is  Like  Those  Swings  You  See  in  Public 

Playgrounds. 


THE  COASTERS 

the  blessings  of  all  the  ship's  company.  And 
then,  with  inhospitable  haste  there  was  a  rat- 
tle of  anchor  chains,  a  quick  jangle  of  bells 
from  the  bridge  to  the  engine-room,  and  the 
Bruxellesville  swept  out  to  sea,  leaving  the 
girl  from  the  London  suburb  to  find  her  way 
into  the  heart  of  Africa.  Next  morning  we 
anchored  in  a  dripping  fog  off  Sekondi  on  the 
Gold  Coast,  to  allow  an  English  doctor  to 
find  his  way  to  a  fever  camp.  For  nine  years 
he  had  been  a  Coaster,  and  he  had  just  gone 
home  to  fit  himself,  by  a  winter's  vacation  in 
London,  for  more  work  along  the  Gold  Coast. 
It  is  said  of  him  that  he  has  "never  lost  a 
life."  On  arriving  in  London  he  received  a 
cable  telling  him  three  doctors  had  died,  the 
miners  along  the  railroad  to  Ashanti  were 
rotten  with  fever,  and  that  he  was  needed. 

So  he  and  his  wife,  as  cheery  and  bright  as 
though  she  were  setting  forth  on  her  honey- 
moon, were  going  back  to  take  up  the  white 
man's  burden.  We  swung  them  over  the  side 
as  we  had  the  other  two,  and  that  night  in 
the  smoking-room  the  Coasters  drank  "Luck 
to  him,"  which,  in  the  vernacular  of  this  un- 
healthy shore,  means  "Life  to  him,"  and  to 

29 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

the  plucky,  jolly  woman  who  was  going  back 
to  fight  death  with  the  man  who  had  never 
lost  a  life. 

As  the  ship  was  getting  under  way,  a  young 
man  in  "whites"  and  a  sun  helmet,  an  agent 
of  a  trading  company,  went  down  the  sea 
ladder  by  which  I  was  leaning.  He  was 
smart,  alert;  his  sleeves,  rolled  recklessly  to 
his  shoulders,  showed  sinewy,  sunburnt  arms; 
his  helmet,  I  noted,  was  a  military  one.  Per- 
haps I  looked  as  I  felt;  that  it  was  a  pity  to 
see  so  good  a  man  go  back  to  such  a  land, 
for  he  looked  up  at  me  from  the  swinging  lad- 
der and  smiled  understanding^  as  though  we 
had  been  old  acquaintances. 

"You  going  far.?"  he  asked.  He  spoke  in 
the  soft,  detached  voice  of  the  public-school 
Englishman. 

"To  the  Congo,"  I  answered. 

He  stood  swaying  with  the  ship,  looking  as 
though  there  were  something  he  wished  to 
say,  and  then  laughed,  and  added  gravely, 
giving  me  the  greeting  of  the  Coast:  "Luck 
to  you." 

"  Luck  to  YOU,"  I  said. 

That  is  the  worst  of  these  gaddings  about, 

30 


THE  COASTERS 


these  meetings  with  men  you  wish  you  could 
know,  who  pass  like  a  face  in  the  crowded 
street,  who  hold  out  a  hand,  or  give  the  pass- 
word of  the  brotherhood,  and  then  drop  down 
the  sea  ladder  and  out  of  your  life  forever. 


3x 


II 

MY   brother's    keeper 

TO  me,  the  fact  of  greatest  interest  about 
the  Congo  is  that  it  is  owned,  and  the 
twenty  milHons  of  people  who  inhabit  it  are 
owned  by  one  man.  The  land  and  its  people 
are  his  private  property.  I  am  not  trying  to 
say  that  he  governs  the  Congo.  He  does 
govern  it,  but  that  in  itself  would  not  be  of 
interest.  His  claim  is  that  he  owns  it. 
Though  backed  by  all  the  mailed  fists  in  the 
German  Empire,  and  all  the  Dreadnoughts  of 
the  seas,  no  other  modern  monarch  would 
make  such  a  claim.  It  does  not  sound  like 
anything  we  have  heard  since  the  days  and 
the  ways  of  Pharaoh.  And  the  most  re- 
markable feature  of  it  is,  that  the  man  who 
makes  this  claim  is  the  man  who  was  placed 
over  the  Congo  as  a  guardian,  to  keep  it  open 
to  the  trade  of  the  world,  to  suppress  slavery. 

That,  in  the  Congo,  he  has  killed  trade  and 

32 


MY  BROTHER'S  KEEPER 

made  the  products  of  the  land  his  own,  that 
of  the  natives  he  did  not  kill  he  has  made 
slaves,  is  what  to-day  gives  the  Congo  its 
chief  interest.  It  is  well  to  emphasize  how 
this  one  man  stole  a  march  on  fourteen  Pow- 
ers, including  the  United  States,  and  stole  also 
an  empire  of  one  million  square  miles. 

Twenty-five  years  ago  all  of  Africa  was 
divided  into  many  parts.  The  part  which 
still  remained  to  be  distributed  among  the 
Powers  was  that  which  was  watered  by  the 
Congo  River  and  its  tributaries. 

Along  the  north  bank  of  the  Congo  River 
ran  the  French  Congo;  the  Portuguese  owned 
the  lands  to  the  south,  and  on  the  east  it  was 
shut  in  by  protectorates  and  colonies  of  Ger- 
many and  England.  It  was,  and  is,  a  terri- 
tory as  large,  were  Spain  and  Russia  omitted, 
as  Europe.  Were  a  map  of  the  Congo  laid 
upon  a  map  of  Europe,  with  the  mouth  of  the 
Congo  River  where  France  and  Spain  meet 
at  Biarritz,  the  boundaries  of  the  Congo  would 
reach  south  to  the  heel  of  Italy,  to  Greece,  to 
Smyrna;  east  to  Constantinople  and  Odessa; 
northeast  to  St.  Petersburg  and  Finland,  and 
northwest  to  the  extreme  limits  of  Scotland. 

33 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

Distances  in  this  country  are  so  enormous,  the 
means  of  progress  so  primitive,  that  many  of 
the  Belgian  officers  with  whom  I  came  south 
and  who  already  had  travelled  nineteen  days 
from  Antwerp,  had  still,  before  they  reached 
their  posts,  to  steam,  paddle,  and  walk  for 
three  months. 

In  1844  to  dispose  amicably  of  this  great 
territory,  which  was  much  desired  by  several 
of  the  Powers,  a  conference  was  held  at  Ber- 
lin. There  it  was  decided  to  make  of  the 
Congo  Basin  an  Independent  State,  a  "free- 
for-all  '*  country,  where  every  flag  could  trade 
with  equal  right,  and  with  no  special  tariff  or 
restriction. 

The  General  Act  of  this  conference  agreed : 
"The  trade  of  all  nations  shall  enjoy  com- 
plete freedom."  "No  Power  which  exercises 
or  shall  exercise  Sovereign  rights  in  the  above- 
mentioned  regions  shall  be  allowed  to  grant 
therein  a  monopoly  or  favor  of  any  kind  in 
matters  of  trade"  "All  the  Powers  exercis- 
ing Sovereign  rights  or  influence  in  the  afore- 
said territories  bind  themselves  to  watch  over 
the  preservation  of  the  native  tribes,  and  to 

care  for  the  improvement  of  the  condition  of 

34 


MY  BROTHER'S  KEEPER 

their  moral  and  material  welfare,  and  to  help 
in  suppressing  slavery."  The  italics  are  mine. 
These  quotations  from  the  act  are  still  binding 
upon  the  fourteen  Powers,  including  the 
United  States. 

For  several  years  previous  to  the  Confer- 
ence of  Berlin,  Leopold  of  Belgium,  as  a  pri- 
vate individual,  had  shown  much  interest  in 
the  development  of  the  Congo.  The  opening 
up  of  that  territory  was  apparently  his  hobby. 
Out  of  his  own  pocket  he  paid  for  expeditions 
into  the  Congo  Basin,  employed  German  and 
English  explorers,  and  protested  against  the 
then  existing  iniquities  of  the  Arabs,  who  for 
ivory  and  slaves  raided  the  Upper  Congo. 
Finally,  assisted  by  many  geographical  socie- 
ties, he  founded  the  International  Association, 
to  promote  "civilization  and  trade"  in  Central 
Africa;  and  enlisted  Henry  M.  Stanley  in 
this  service. 

That,  in  the  early  years,  Leopold's  interest 
in  the  Congo  was  unselfish  may  or  may  not 
be  granted,  but,  knowing  him,  as  we  now 
know  him,  as  one  of  the  shrewdest  and,  of 
speculators,  the  most  unscrupulous,  at  the 
time  of  the  Berlin  Conference,  his  self-seeking 

35 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

may  safely  be  accepted.  Quietly,  unostenta- 
tiously, he  presented  himself  to  its  individual 
members  as  a  candidate  for  the  post  of  ad- 
ministrator of  this  new  territory. 

On  the  face  of  it  he  seemed  an  admirable 
choice.  He  was  a  sovereign  of  a  kingdom 
too  unimportant  to  be  feared;  of  the  newly 
created  State  he  undoubtedly  possessed  an 
intimate  knowledge.  He  promised  to  give  to 
the  Dutch,  English,  and  Portuguese  traders, 
already  for  many  years  established  on  the 
Congo,  his  heartiest  aid,  and,  for  those  traders 
still  to  come,  to  maintain  the  "open  door.'* 
His  professions  of  a  desire  to  help  the  natives 
were  profuse.  He  became  the  unanimous 
choice  of  the  conference. 

Later  he  announced  to  the  Powers  signing 
the  act,  that  from  Belgium  he  had  received 
the  right  to  assume  the  title  of  King  of  the 
Independent  State  of  the  Congo.  The  Powers 
recognized  his  new  title. 

The  fact  that  Leopold,  King  of  Belgium, 
was  king  also  of  the  £tat  Independant  du 
Congo  confused  many  into  thinking  that  the 
Free  State  was  a  colony,  or  under  the  protec- 
tion, of  Belgium.    As  we  have  seen,  it  is  not. 

36 


MY  BROTHER'S  KEEPER 

A  Belgian  may  serve  in  the  army  of  the  Free 
State,  or  in  a  civil  capacity,  as  may  a  man  of 
any  nation,  but,  although  with  few  exceptions 
only  Belgians  are  employed  in  the  Free  State, 
and  although  to  help  the  King  in  the  Congo, 
the  Belgian  Government  has  loaned  him  great 
sums  of  money,  politically  and  constitution- 
ally the  two  governments  are  as  independent 
of  each  other  as  France  and  Spain. 

And  so,  in  1885,  Leopold,  by  the  grace  of 
fourteen  governments,  was  appointed  their 
steward  over  a  great  estate  in  which  each  of 
the  governments  still  holds  an  equal  right; 
a  trustee  and  keeper  over  twenty  millions  of 
"black  brothers"  whose  "moral  and  material 
welfare"  each  government  had  promised  to 
protect. 

There  is  only  one  thing  more  remarkable 
than  the  fact  that  Leopold  was  able  to  turn 
this  public  market  into  a  private  park,  and 
that  is,  that  he  has  been  permitted  to  do  so. 
It  is  true  he  is  a  man  of  wonderful  ability. 
For  his  own  ends  he  is  a  magnificent  organizer. 
But  in  the  fourteen  governments  that  created 
him  there  have  been,  and  to-day  there  are, 
men,  if  less  unscrupulous,  of  quite  as  great 

37 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

ability;  statesmen,  jealous  and  quick  to  guard 
the  rights  of  the  people  they  represent,  people 
who  since  the  twelfth  century  have  been  trad- 
ers, who  since  1808  have  declared  slavery 
abolished. 

And  yet,  for  twenty-five  years  these  states- 
men have  watched  Leopold  disobey  every  pro- 
vision in  the  act  of  the  conference.  Were 
they  to  visit  the  Congo,  they  could  see  for 
themselves  the  jungle  creeping  in  and  burying 
their  trading  posts,  their  great  factories  turned 
into  barracks.  They  know  that  the  blacks  they 
mutually  agreed  to  protect  have  been  reduced 
to  slavery  worse  than  that  they  suffered  from 
the  Arabs,  that  hundreds  of  thousands  of  them 
have  fled  from  the  Congo,  and  that  those  that 
remain  have  been  mutilated,  maimed,  or, 
what  was  more  merciful,  murdered.  And  yet 
the  fourteen  governments,  including  the 
United  States,  have  done  nothing. 

Some  tell  you  they  do  not  interfere  because 
they  are  jealous  one  of  the  other;  others  say 
that  it  is  because  they  believe  the  Congo  will 
soon  be  taken  over  by  Belgium,  and  with 
Belgium  in  control,  they  argue,  they  would 

be  dealing  with   a   responsible   government, 

38 


MY  BROTHER'S  KEEPER 

instead  of  with  a  pirate.  But  so  long  as  Leo- 
pold is  King  of  Belgium  one  doubts  if  Belgians 
in  the  Congo  would  rise  above  the  level  of 
their  King.  The  English,  when  asked  why 
they  do  not  assert  their  rights,  granted  not 
only  to  them,  but  to  thirteen  other  govern- 
ments, reply  that  if  they  did  they  would  be 
accused  of  "ulterior  motives."  What  ulterior 
motives  ?  If  you  pursue  a  pickpocket  and 
recover  your  watch  from  him,  are  your  mo- 
tives in  doing  so  open  to  suspicion  ? 

Personally,  although  this  is  looking  some 
way  ahead,  I  would  like  to  see  the  English 
take  over  and  administrate  the  Congo.  Wher- 
ever I  visit  a  colony  governed  by  Englishmen 
I  find  under  their  administration,  in  spite  of 
opium  in  China  and  gin  on  the  West  Coast, 
that  three  people  are  benefited:  the  English- 
man, the  native,  and  the  foreign  trader  from 
any  other  part  of  the  world.  Of  the  colonies 
of  what  other  country  can  one  say  the  same  ? 

As  a  rule  our  present  governments  are  not 
loath  to  protect  their  rights.  But  toward  as- 
serting them  in  the  Congo  they  have  been 
moved  neither  by  the  protests  of  traders, 
chambers    of    commerce,    missionaries,    the 

39 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

public  press,  nor  by  the  cry  of  the  black  man 
to  "let  my  people  go."  By  only  those  in  high 
places  can  it  be  explained.  We  will  leave  it 
as  a  curious  fact,  and  return  to  the  "Unjust 
Steward." 

His  first  act  was  to  wage  wars  upon  the 
Arabs.  From  the  Soudan  and  from  the  East 
Coast  they  were  raiding  the  Congo  for  slaves 
and  ivory,  and  he  drove  them  from  it.  By 
these  wars  he  accomplished  two  things.  As 
the  defender  of  the  slave,  he  gained  much 
public  credit,  and  he  kept  the  ivory.  But  war 
is  expensive,  and  soon  he  pointed  out  to  the 
Powers  that  to  ask  him  out  of  his  own  pocket 
to  maintain  armies  in  the  field  and  to  ad- 
minister a  great  estate  was  unfair.  He  hum- 
bly sought  their  permission  to  levy  a  few  taxes. 
It  seemed  a  reasonable  request.  To  clear 
roads,  to  keep  boats  upon  the  great  rivers,  to 
mark  it  with  buoys,  to  maintain  wood  stations 
for  the  steamers,  to  improve  the  "moral  and 
material  welfare  of  the  natives,"  would  cost 
money,  and  to  allow  Leopold  to  bring  about 
these  improvements,  which  would  be  for  the 
good  of  all,  he  was  permitted  to  levy  the  few 

taxes.     That  was  twenty  years  ago;  to-day  I 

40 


MY  BROTHER'S  KEEPER 

saw  none  of  these  improvements,  and  the 
taxes  have  increased. 

From  the  first  they  were  so  heavy  that  the 
great  trade  houses,  which  for  one  hundred 
years  in  peace  and  mutual  goodwill  bartered 
with  the  natives,  found  themselves  ruined.  It 
was  not  alone  the  export  taxes,  lighterage  dues, 
port  dues,  and  personal  taxes  that  drove  them 
out  of  the  Congo;  it  was  the  King  appearing 
against  them  as  a  rival  trader,  the  man  ap- 
pointed to  maintain  the  "open  door."  And  a 
trader  with  methods  they  could  not  or  would 
not  imitate.  Leopold,  or  the  "State,"  saw  for 
the  existence  of  the  Congo  only  two  reasons: 
Rubber  and  Ivory.  And  the  collecting  of  this 
rubber  and  ivory  was,  as  he  saw  it,  the  sole 
duty  of  the  State  and  its  officers.  When  he 
threw  over  the  part  of  trustee  and  became 
the  Arab  raider  he  could  not  waste  his  time, 
which,  he  had  good  reason  to  fear,  might  be 
short,  upon  products  that,  if  fostered,  would 
be  of  value  only  in  later  years.  Still  less  time 
had  he  to  give  to  improvements  that  cost 
money  and  that  would  be  of  benefit  to  his 
successors.      He    wanted    only    rubber;     he 

wanted  it  at  once,  and  he  cared  not  at  all  how 

41 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

he  obtained  it.  So  he  spun,  and  still  spins, 
the  greatest  of  all  "get-rich-quick"  schemes; 
one  of  gigantic  proportions,  full  of  tragic, 
monstrous,  nauseous  details. 

The  only  possible  way  to  obtain  rubber  is 
through  the  native;  as  yet,  in  teeming  forests, 
the  white  man  can  not  work  and  live.  Of 
even  Chinese  coolies  imported  here  to  build  a 
railroad  ninety  per  cent.  died.  So,  with  a 
stroke  of  the  pen,  Leopold  declared  all  the 
rubber  in  the  country  the  property  of  the 
"State,"  and  then,  to  make  sure  that  the  na- 
tives would  work  it,  ordered  that  taxes  be 
paid  in  rubber.  If,  once  a  month  (in  order 
to  keep  the  natives  steadily  at  work  the  taxes 
were  ordered  to  be  paid  each  month  instead 
of  once  a  year),  each  village  did  not  bring  in 
so  many  baskets  of  rubber  the  King*s  cannibal 
soldiers  raided  it,  carried  off  the  women  as 
hostages,  and  made  prisoners  of  the  men,  or 
killed  and  ate  them.  For  every  kilo  of  rubber 
brought  in  in  excess  of  the  quota  the  King's 
agent,  who  received  the  collected  rubber  and 
forwarded  it  down  the  river,  was  paid  a  com- 
mission.    Or  was  "paid  by  results."    Another 

bonus  was  given  him  based  on  the  price  at 

42 


p< 


tc 

> 

< 


MY  BROTHER'S  KEEPER 

which  he  obtained  the  rubber.  If  he  paid  the 
native  only  six  cents  for  every  two  pounds,  he 
received  a  bonus  of  three  cents,  the  cost  to 
the  State  being  but  nine  cents  per  kilo,  but,  if 
he  paid  the  natives  twelve  cents  for  every  two 
pounds,  he  received  as  a  bonus  less  than  one 
cent.  In  a  word,  the  more  rubber  the  agent 
collected  the  more  he  personally  benefited,  and 
if  he  obtained  it  "cheaply"  or  for  nothing — 
that  is,  by  taking  hostages,  making  prisoners, 
by  the  whip  of  hippopotamus  hide,  by  torture 
— so  much  greater  his  fortune,  so  much  richer 
Leopold. 

Few  schemes  devised  have  been  more 
cynical,  more  devilish,  more  cunningly  de- 
signed to  incite  a  man  to  cruelty  and  abuse. 
To  dishonesty  it  was  an  invitation  and  a  re- 
ward. It  was  this  system  of  "payment  by 
results,"  evolved  by  Leopold  sooner  than 
allow  his  agents  a  fixed  and  suflftcient  wage, 
that  led  to  the  atrocities. 

One  result  of  this  system  was  that  in  seven 
years  the  natives  condemned  to  slavery  in  the 
rubber  forests  brought  in  rubber  to  the  amount 
of  fifty-five  millions  of  dollars.  But  its  chief 
results  were  the  destruction  of  entire  villages, 

43 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

the  flight  from  their  homes  in  the  Congo  of 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  natives,  and  for 
those  that  remained  misery,  death,  the  most 
brutal  tortures  and  degradations,  unprintable, 
unthinkable. 

I  am  not  going  to  enter  into  the  question  of 
the  atrocities.  In  the  Congo  the  tip  has  been 
given  out  from  those  higher  up  at  Brussels  to 
"close  up"  the  atrocities;  and  for  the  present 
the  evil  places  in  the  Tenderloin  and  along  the 
Broadway  of  the  Congo  are  tightly  shut.  But 
at  those  lonely  posts,  distant  a  month  to  three 
months*  march  from  the  capital,  the  cruelties 
still  continue.  I  did  not  see  them.  Neither, 
last  year,  did  a  great  many  people  in  the 
United  States  see  the  massacre  of  blacks  in 
Atlanta.  But  they  have  reason  to  believe  it 
occurred.  And  after  one  has  talked  with  the 
men  and  women  who  have  seen  the  atrocities, 
has  seen  in  the  official  reports  that  those  ac- 
cused of  the  atrocities  do  not  deny  having 
committed  them,  but  point  out  that  they  were 
merely  obeying  orders,  and  after  one  has  seen 
that  even  at  the  capital  of  Boma  all  the  condi- 
tions of  slavery  exist,  one  is  assured  that  in 
the  jungle,  away  from  the  sight  of  men,  all 

44 


MY  BROTHER'S  KEEPER 

things  arc  possible.  Merchants,  missionaries, 
and  officials  even  in  Leopold's  service  told  me 
that  if  one  could  spare  a  year  and  a  half,  or  a 
year,  to  the  work  in  the  hinterland  he  would 
be  an  eye-witness  of  as  cruel  treatment  of  the 
natives  as  any  that  has  gone  before,  and  if  I 
can  trust  myself  to  weigh  testimony  and  can 
believe  my  eyes  and  ears  I  have  reason  to 
know  that  what  they  say  is  true.  I  am  con- 
vinced that  to-day  a  man,  who  feels  that  a 
year  and  a  half  is  little  enough  to  give  to  the 
aid  of  twenty  millions  of  human  beings,  can 
accomplish  in  the  Congo  as  great  and  good 
work  as  that  of  the  Abolitionists. 

Three  years  ago  atrocities  here  were  open 
and  above-board.  For  instance.  In  the  opin- 
ion of  the  State  the  soldiers,  in  killing  game 
for  food,  wasted  the  State  cartridges,  and  in 
consequence  the  soldiers,  to  show  their  officers 
that  they  did  not  expend  the  cartridges  ex- 
travagantly on  antelope  and  wild  boar,  for 
each  empty  cartridge  brought  in  a  human 
hand,  the  hand  of  a  man,  woman,  or  child. 
These  hands,  drying  in  the  sun,  could  be  seen 
at  the  posts  along  the  river.  They  are  no 
longer  in  evidence.    Neither  is  the  flower-bed 

45 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

of  Lieutenant  Dom,  which  was  bordered  with 
human  skulls.     A  quaint  conceit. 

The  man  to  blame  for  the  atrocities,  for 
each  separate  atrocity,  is  Leopold.  Had  he 
shaken  his  head  they  would  have  ceased. 
When  the  hue  and  cry  in  Europe  grew  too  hot 
for  him  and  he  held  up  his  hand  they  did 
cease.  At  least  along  the  main  waterways. 
Years  before  he  could  have  stopped  them. 
But  these  were  the  seven  fallow  years,  when 
millions  of  tons  of  red  rubber  were  being 
dumped  upon  the  wharf  at  Antwerp;  little, 
roughly  rolled  red  balls,  like  pellets  of  coagu- 
lated blood,  which  had  cost  their  weight  in 
blood,  which  would  pay  Leopold  their  weight 
in  gold. 

He  can  not  plead  ignorance.  Of  all  that 
goes  on  in  his  big  plantation  no  man  has  a 
better  knowledge.  Without  their  personal 
honesty,  he  follows  every  detail  of  the  "busi- 
ness'* of  his  rubber  farm  with  the  same  dili- 
gence that  made  rich  men  of  George  Boldt 
and  Marshall  Field.  Leopold's  knowledge  is 
gained  through  many  spies,  by  voluminous 
reports,  by  following  up  the  expenditure  of 

each  centime,  of  each  arm's-length  of  blue 

46 


MY  BROTHER'S  KEEPER 

cloth.  Of  every  Belgian  employed  on  his 
farm,  and  ninety-five  per  cent,  are  Belgians, 
he  holds  the  dossier;  he  knows  how  many 
kilos  a  month  the  agent  whips  out  of  his  vil- 
lages, how  many  bottles  of  absinthe  he  smug- 
gles from  the  French  side,  whether  he  lives 
with  one  black  woman  or  five,  why  his 
white  wife  in  Belgium  left  him,  why  he  left 
Belgium,  why  he  dare  not  return.  The  agent 
knows  that  Leopold,  King  of  the  Belgians, 
knows,  and  that  he  has  shared  that  knowl- 
edge with  the  agent's  employer,  the  man  who 
by  bribes  of  rich  bonuses  incites  him  to  crime, 
the  man  who  could  throw  him  into  a  Belgian 
jail,  Leopold,  King  of  the  Congo. 

The  agent  decides  for  him  it  is  best  to 
please  both  Leopolds,  and  Leopold  makes  no 
secret  of  what  best  pleases  him.  For  not  only 
is  he  responsible  for  the  atrocities,  in  that  he 
does  not  try  to  suppress  them,  but  he  is  doubly 
guilty  in  that  he  has  encouraged  them.  This 
he  has  done  with  cynical,  callous  publicity, 
without  effort  at  concealment,  without  shame. 
Men  who,  in  obtaining  rubber,  committed  un- 
speakable crimes,  the  memory  of  which  makes 
other  men  uncomfortable  in  their  presence, 

47 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

Leopold  rewarded  with  rich  bonuses,  pensions, 
higher  office,  gilt  badges  of  shame,  and  rapid 
advancement.  To  those  whom  even  his  own 
judges  sentenced  to  many  years'  imprison- 
ment he  promptly  granted  the  royal  pardon, 
promoted,  and  sent  back  to  work  in  the  vine- 
yard. 

"That  is  the  sort  of  man  for  me"  his  action 
seemed  to  say.  "See  how  I  value  that  good 
and  faithful  servant.  That  man  collected 
much  rubber.  You  observe  I  do  not  ask  how 
he  got  it.  I  will  not  ask  you.  All  you  need 
do  is  to  collect  rubber.  Use  our  improved 
methods.  Gum  copal  rubbed  in  the  kinky 
hair  of  the  chief  and  then  set  on  fire  burns, 
so  my  agents  tell  me,  like  vitriol.  For  col- 
lecting rubber  the  chief  is  no  longer  valuable, 
but  to  his  successor  it  is  an  object-lesson. 
Let  me  recommend  also  the  chicotte^  the  tort- 
ure tower,  the  *  hostage'  house,  and  the 
crucifix.  Many  other  stimulants  to  labor  will 
no  doubt  suggest  themselves  to  you  and  to 
your  cannibal  *  sentries.'  Help  to  make  me 
rich,  and  don't  fear  the  *  State.'  'UEtat,  c*est 
moil*     Go  as  far  as  you  like!" 

I  said  the  degradations  and  tortures  prac- 

48 


MY  BROTHER'S  KEEPER 

tised  by  the  men  "working  on  commission" 
for  Leopold  are  unprintable,  but  they  have 
been  printed,  and  those  who  wish  to  read  a 
calmly  compiled,  careful,  and  correct  record 
of  their  deeds  will  find  it  in  the  "Red  Rubber" 
of  Mr.  E.  R.  Morel.  An  even  better  book  by  •/ 
the  same  authority,  on  the  whole  history  of 
the  State,  is  his  "King  Leopold's  Rule  in  the 
Congo."  Mr.  Morel  has  many  enemies.  So, 
early  in  the  nineteenth  century,  had  the  Eng- 
lish Abolitionists,  Wilberforce  and  Granville 
Sharp.  After  they  were  dead  they  were  buried 
in  the  Abbey,  and  their  portraits  were  placed 
in  the  National  Gallery.  People  who  wish  to 
assist  in  freeing  twenty  millions  of  human 
beings  should  to-day  support  Mr.  Morel.  It 
will  be  of  more  service  to  the  blacks  than, 
after  he  is  dead,  burying  him  in  Westminster 
Abbey. 

Mr.  Morel,  the  American  and  English  > 
missionaries,  and  the  English  Consul,  Roger 
Casement,  and  other  men,  in  Belgium,  have 
made  a  magnificent  fight  against  Leopold; 
but  the  Powers  to  whom  they  have  appealed 
have  been  silent.  Taking  courage  of  this 
silence,  Leopold  has  divided  the  Congo  into 

49 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

several  great  territories  in  which  the  sole 
right  to  work  rubber  is  conceded  to  certain 
persons.  To  those  who  protested  that  no 
one  in  the  Congo  "Free"  State  but  the 
King  could  trade  in  rubber,  Leopold,  as 
an  answer,  pointed  with  pride  at  the  pre- 
serves of  these  foreigners.  And  he  may  well 
point  at  them  with  pride,  for  in  some  of  those 
companies  he  owns  a  third,  and  in  most  of 
them  he  holds  a  half,  or  a  controlling  interest. 
The  directors  of  the  foreign  companies  are  his 
cronies,  members  of  his  royal  household,  his 
brokers,  bankers.  You  have  only  to  read  the 
names  published  in  the  lists  of  the  Brussels 
Stock  Exchange  to  see  that  these  "trading 
companies,'*  under  different  aliases,  are  Leo- 
pold. Having,  then,  "conceded"  the  greater 
part  of  the  Congo  to  himself,  Leopold  set  aside 
the  best  part  of  it,  so  far  as  rubber  is  con- 
cerned, as  a  Domaine  Prive.  Officially  the  re- 
ceipts of  this  pay  for  running  the  government, 
and  for  schools,  roads  and  wharfs,  for  which 
taxes  were  levied,  but  for  which,  after  twenty 
years,  one  looks  in  vain.  Leopold  claims  that 
through  the  Congo  he  is  out  of  pocket;  that 
this   carrying   the    banner   of  civilization   in 

so 


MY  BROTHER'S  KEEPER 

Africa  does  not  pay.  Through  his  press 
bureaus  he  tells  that  his  sympathy  for  his 
black  brother,  his  desire  to  see  the  commerce 
of  the  world  busy  along  the  Congo,  alone  pre- 
vents him  giving  up  what  is  for  him  a  losing 
business.  There  are  several  answers  to  this. 
One  is  that  in  the  Kasai  Company  alone  Leo- 
pold owns  2,010  shares  of  stock.  Worth  orig- 
inally $^0  a  share,  the  value  of  each  share 
rose  to  ^3,100,  making  at  one  time  his  total 
shares  worth  ;^5,42i,ooo.  In  the  A.  B.  I.  R. 
Concession  he  owns  1,000  shares,  origi- 
nally worth  ^100  each,  later  worth  ^940.  In 
the  "vintage  year'*  of  1900  each  of  these  shares 
was  worth  ^5,050,  and  the  1,000  shares  thus 
rose  to  the  value  of  ^5,050,000. 

These  are  only  two  companies.  In  most  of 
the  others  half  the  shares  are  owned  by  the 
King. 

As  published  in  the  "State  Bulletin,"  the 
money  received  in  eight  years  for  rubber  and 
ivory  gathered  in  the  Domaine  Prive  differs 
from  the  amount  given  for  it  in  the  market  at 
Antwerp.  The  official  estimates  show  a  loss 
to  the  government.  The  actual  sales  show 
that  the  government,  over  and  above  its  own 

SI 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

estimate  of  its  expenses,  instead  of  losing, 
made  from  the  Domaine  Prive  alone  ^10,000,- 
000.  We  are  left  wondering  to  whom  went 
that  unaccounted-for  $10,000,000.  Certainly 
the  King  would  not  take  it,  for,  to  reimburse 
himself  for  his  efforts,  he  early  in  the  game 
reserved  for  himself  another  tract  of  territory 
known  as  the  Domaine  de  la  Couronne.  For 
years  he  denied  that  this  existed.  He  knew 
nothing  of  Crown  Lands.  But,  at  last,  in  the 
Belgian  Chamber,  it  was  publicly  charged 
that  for  years  from  this  private  source,  which 
he  had  said  did  not  exist,  Leopold  had  been 
drawing  an  income  of  ^i 5,000,000.  Since 
then  the  truth  of  this  statement  has  been 
denied,  but  at  the  time  in  the  Chamber  it  was 
not  contradicted. 

To-day,  grown  insolent  by  the  apathy  of  the 
Powers,  Leopold  finds  disguising  himself  as 
a  company,  as  a  laborer  worthy  of  his  hire, 
irksome.  He  now  decrees  that  as  "  Sovereign  " 
over  the  Congo  all  of  the  Congo  belongs  to 
him.  It  is  as  much  his  property  as  is  a  phea- 
sant drive,  as  is  a  staked-out  mining  claim,  as 
your  hat  is  your  property.  And  the  twenty 
millions  of  people  who  inhabit  it  are  there  only 

S3 


MY  BROTHER'S  KEEPER 

on  his  sufferance.  They  are  his  "tenants."  He 
permits  each  the  hut  in  which  he  hves,  and 
the  garden  adjoining  that  hut,  but  his  work 
must  be  for  Leopold,  and  everything  else,  ani- 
mal, mineral,  or  vegetable,  belongs  to  Leopold. 
The  natives  not  only  may  not  sell  ivory  or  rub- 
ber to  independent  traders,  but  if  it  is  found  in 
their  possession  it  is  seized ;  and  if  you  and  I 
bought  a  tusk  of  ivory  here  it  would  be  taken 
from  us  and  we  could  be  prosecuted.  This  is 
the  law.  Other  men  rule  over  territories  more 
vast  even  than  the  Congo.  The  King  of  Eng- 
land rules  an  empire  upon  which  the  sun 
never  sets.  But  he  makes  no  claim  to  own  it. 
Against  the  wishes  of  even  the  humblest 
crofter,  the  King  would  not,  because  he  knows 
he  could  not,  enter  his  cottage.  Nor  can  we 
imagine  even  Kaiser  William  going  into  the 
palm-leaf  hut  of  a  charcoal-burner  in  German 
East  Africa  and  saying:  "This  is  my  palm- 
leaf  hut.  This  is  my  charcoal.  You  must 
not  sell  it  to  the  English,  or  the  French,  or 
the  American.  If  they  buy  from  you  they  are 
'receivers  of  stolen  goods.'  To  feed  my  sol- 
diers you  must  drag  my  river  for  my  fish. 
For  me,  in  my  swamp  and  in  my  jungle,  you 

S3 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

must  toil  twenty-four  days  of  each  month  to 
gather  my  rubber.  You  must  not  hunt  the 
elephants,  for  they  are  my  elephants.  Those 
tusks  that  fifty  years  ago  your  grandfather, 
with  his  naked  spear,  cut  from  an  elephant, 
and  which  you  have  tried  to  hide  from  me 
under  the  floor  of  this  hut,  are  my  ivory.  Be- 
cause that  elephant,  running  wild  through  the 
jungle  fifty  years  ago,  belonged  to  me.  And 
you  yourself  are  mine,  your  time  is  mine,  your 
labor  is  mine,  your  wife,  your  children,  all  are 
mine.     They  belong  to  me." 

This,  then,  is  the  "open  door"  as  I  find  it 
to-day  in  the  Congo.  It  is  an  incredible  state 
of  aff^airs,  so  insolent,  so  magnificent  in  its 
impertinence,  that  it  would  be  humorous, 
were  it  not  for  its  background  of  misery  and 
suffering,  for  its  hostage  houses,  its  chain 
gangs,  its  chicottes,  its  nameless  crimes  against 
the  human  body,  its  baskets  of  dried  hands 
held  up  in  tribute  to  the  Belgian  blackguard. 


54 


Ill 

THE    CAPITAL    OF   THE    CONGO 

LEOPOLD'S  "shop"  has  its  front  door  at 
'  Banana.  Its  house  flag  is  a  golden  star 
on  a  blue  background.  Banana  is  the  port  of 
entry  to  the  Congo.  You  have,  no  doubt, 
seen  many  ports  of  Europe — ^Antwerp,  Ham- 
burg, Boulogne,  Lisbon,  Genoa,  Marseilles. 
Banana  is  the  port  of  entry  to  a  country  as 
large  as  Western  Europe,  and  while  the  im- 
ports and  exports  of  Europe  trickle  through 
all  these  cities,  the  commerce  of  the  Congo 
enters  and  departs  entirely  at  Banana.  You 
can  then  picture  the  busy  harbor,  the  jungle  of 
masts,  the  white  bridges  and  awnings  of  the 
steamers.  By  the  fat  funnels  and  the  flags 
you  can  distinguish  the  English  tramps,  the 
German  merchantmen,  the  French,  Dutch, 
Italian,  Portuguese  traders,  the  smart  "liners" 
from  Liverpool,  even  the  Arab  dhows  with 
bird-wing  sails,  even  the  steel,  four-masted 

55 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

schooners  out  of  Boston,  U.  S.  A.  You  can 
imagine  the  toiling  lighters,  the  slap-dash 
tenders,  the  launches  with  shrieking  whistles. 

Of  course,  you  suspect  it  is  not  a  bit  like 
that.  But  were  it  for  fourteen  countries  the 
"open  door*'  to  twenty  millions  of  people,  that 
is  how  it  might  look. 

Instead,  it  is  the  private  entrance  to  the 
preserves  of  a  private  individual.  So  what 
you  really  see  is,  on  the  one  hand,  islands  of 
mangrove  bushes,  with  their  roots  in  the 
muddy  water;  on  the  other,  Banana,  a  strip 
of  sand  and  palm  trees  without  a  wharf,  quay, 
landing  stage,  without  a  pier  to  which  you  could 
make  fast  anything  larger  than  a  rowboat. 

In  a  canoe  naked  natives  paddle  alongside 
to  sell  fish;  a  peevish  little  man  in  a  sun  hat, 
who,  in  order  to  save  Leopold  three  salaries, 
holds  four  port  offices,  is  being  rowed  to  the 
gangway;  on  shore  the  only  other  visible  in- 
habitant of  Banana,  a  man  with  no  nerves,  is 
disturbing  the  brooding,  sweating  silence  by 
knocking  the  rust  off  the  plates  of  a  stranded 
mud-scow.  Welcome  to  our  city!  Welcome 
to  busy,  bustling  Banana,  the  port  of  entry  of 
the  Congo  Free  State. 

56 


THE  CAPITAL  OF  THE  CONGO 

In  a  canoe  we  were  paddled  to  the  back  yard 
of  the  cafe  of  Madame  Samuel,  and  from  that 
bower  of  warm  beer  and  sardine  tins  trudged 
through  the  sun  up  one  side  of  Banana  and 
down  the  other.  In  between  the  two  paths 
were  the  bungalows  and  gardens  of  forty  white 
men  and  two  white  women.  Many  of  the 
gardens,  as  was  most  of  Banana,  were  neglect- 
ed, untidy,  littered  with  condensed-milk  tins. 
Others,  more  carefully  tended,  were  laid  out 
in  rigid  lines.  With  all  tropical  nature  to 
draw  upon,  nothing  had  been  imagined.  The 
most  ambitious  efforts  were  designs  in  white- 
washed shells  and  protruding  beer  bottles. 
We  could  not  help  remembering  the  gardens  in 
Japan,  of  the  poorest  and  the  most  ignorant 
coolies.  Do  I  seem  to  find  fault  with  Banana 
out  of  all  proportion  to  its  importance  ?  It  is 
because  Banana,  the  Congo's  most  advanced 
post  of  civilization,  is  typical  of  all  that  lies 
beyond. 

From  what  I  had  read  of  the  Congo  I  ex- 
pected a  broad  sweep  of  muddy,  malaria- 
breeding  water,  lined  by  low-lying  swamp 
lands,  gloomy,  monotonous,  depressing. 

But  on  the  way  to  Boma  and,  later,  when 

57 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

I  travelled  on  the  Upper  Congo,  I  thought  the 
river  more  beautiful  than  any  great  river  I 
had  ever  seen.  It  was  full  of  wonderful  sur- 
prises. Sometimes  it  ran  between  palm- 
covered  banks  of  yellow  sand  as  low  as  those 
of  the  Mississippi  or  the  Nile;  and  again,  in 
half  an  hour,  the  banks  were  rock  and  as 
heavily  wooded  as  the  mountains  of  Montana, 
or  as  white  and  bold  as  the  cliffs  of  Dover,  or 
we  passed  between  great  hills,  covered  with 
what  looked  like  giant  oaks,  and  with  their 
peaks  hidden  in  the  clouds.  I  found  it  like 
no  other  river,  because  in  some  one  particular 
it  was  like  them  all.  Between  Banana  and 
Boma  the  banks  first  screened  us  in  with  the 
tangled  jungle  of  the  tropics,  and  then  opened 
up  great  wind-swept  plateaux,  leading  to  hills 
that  suggested — of  all  places — England,  and, 
at  that,  cultivated  England.  The  contour  of 
the  hills,  the  shape  of  the  trees,  the  shade  of 
their  green  contrasted  with  the  green  of  the 
grass,  were  like  only  the  cliffs  above  Plymouth. 
One  did  not  look  for  native  kraals  and  the 
wild  antelope,  but  for  the  square,  ivy-topped 
tower  of  the  village  church,  the  loaf-shaped 

hayricks,  slow-moving  masses  of  sheep.     But 

58 


THE  CAPITAL  OF  THE  CONGO 

this  that  looks  Hke  a  pasture  land  is  only 
coarse  limestone  covered  with  bitter,  unnutri- 
tious  grass,  which  benefits  neither  beast  nor 
man. 

At  sunset  we  anchored  in  the  current  three 
miles  from  Boma,  and  at  daybreak  we  tied  up 
to  the  iron  wharf.  As  the  capital  of  the  gov- 
ernment Boma  contains  the  residence  and 
gardens  of  the  governor,  who  is  the  personal 
representative  of  Leopold,  both  as  a  shop- 
keeper and  as  a  king  by  divine  right.  He  is  a 
figurehead.  The  real  administrator  is  M. 
Vandamme,  the  Secretaire-General,  the  ubiq- 
uitous, the  mysterious,  whose  name  before 
you  leave  Southampton  is  in  the  air,  of  whom 
all  men,  whether  they  speak  in  French  or 
English,  speak  well.  It  is  from  Boma  that 
M.  Vandamme  sends  collectors  of  rubber, 
politely  labeled  inspecteurs,  directeurs,  judges, 
capitaines,  and  sous-lieutenants  to  their  posts, 
and  distributes  them  over  one  million  square 
miles. 

Boma  is  the  capital  of  a  country  which  is  as 
large  as  six  nations  of  the  European  continent. 
For  twenty-five  years  it  has  been  the  capital. 
Therefore,  the  reader  already  guesses  that 

59 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

Boma  has  only  one  wharf,  and  at  that  wharf 
there  is  no  custom-house,  no  warehouse,  not 
even  a  canvas  awning  under  which,  during  the 
six  months  of  rainy  season,  one  might  seek 
shelter  for  himself  and  his  baggage. 

Our  debarkation  reminded  me  of  a  landing 
of  filibusters.  A  wharf  forty  yards  long  led 
from  the  steamer  to  the  bank.  Down  this 
marched  the  officers  of  the  army,  the  clerks, 
the  bookkeepers,  and  on  the  bank  and  in  the 
street  each  dumped  his  boxes,  his  sword,  his 
camp-bed,  his  full-dress  helmet.  It  looked  as 
though  a  huge  eviction  had  taken  place,  as 
though  a  retreating  army,  having  gained  the 
river's  edge,  were  waiting  for  a  transport.  It 
was  not  as  though  to  the  government  the 
coming  of  these  gentlemen  was  a  complete 
surprise;  regularly  every  three  weeks  at  that 
exact  spot  a  like  number  disembark.  But  in 
years  the  State  has  not  found  it  worth  while  to 
erect  for  them  even  an  open  zinc  shed.  The 
cargo  invoiced  to  the  State  is  given  equal  con- 
sideration. 

"  Prisoners  of  the  State,"  each  wearing  round 

his   neck   a   steel   ring   from  which   a   chain 

stretches  to  the  ring  of  another  "prisoner," 

60 


^K' 

-^r^^^B^^^^ 

■^              ^^ 

^u 


THE  CAPITAL  OF  THE  CONGO 

carried  the  cargo  to  the  open  street,  where  lay 
the  luggage  of  the  officers,  and  there  dropped 
it.  Mingled  with  steamer  chairs,  tin  bath- 
tubs, gun-cases,  were  great  crates  of  sheet  iron, 
green  boxes  of  gin,  bags  of  Teneriffe  potatoes, 
boilers  of  an  engine.  Upon  the  scene  the  sun 
beat  with  vicious,  cruel  persistence.  Those 
officers  who  had  already  served  in  the  Congo 
dropped  their  belongings  under  the  shadow  of 
a  solitary  tree.  Those  who  for  the  first  time 
were  seeing  the  capital  of  the  country  they  had 
sworn  to  serve  sank  upon  their  boxes  and,  with 
dismay  in  their  eyes,  mopped  their  red  and 
dripping  brows. 

Boma  is  built  at  the  foot  of  a  hill  of  red  soil. 
It  is  a  town  of  scattered  buildings  made  of  wood 
and  sheet-iron  plates,  sent  out  in  crates,  and 
held  together  with  screws.  To  Boma  nature 
has  been  considerate.  She  has  contributed 
many  trees,  two  or  three  long  avenues  of 
palms,  and  in  the  many  gardens  caused 
flowers  to  blossom  and  flourish.  In  the  report 
of  the  "Commission  of  Enquiry"  which  Leo- 
pold was  forced  to  send  out  in  1904  to  in- 
vestigate the  atrocities,  and  each  member  of 

which,  for  his  four  months*  work,  received 

61 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

$20,000,  Boma  is  described  as  possessing  "  the 
daintiness  and  chic  of  a  European  watering- 
place." 

Boma  really  is  like  a  seaport  of  one  of  the 
Central  American  republics.  It  has  a  tem- 
porary sufficient-to-the-day-for-to-morrow-we- 
die  air.  It  looks  like  a  military  post  that  at 
any  moment  might  be  abandoned.  To  re- 
move this  impression  the  State  has  certain 
exhibits  which  seem  to  point  to  a  stable  and 
good  government.  There  is  a  well-conducted 
hospital  and  clean,  well-built  barracks;  for  the 
amusement  of  the  black  soldiers  even  a  theatre, 
and  for  the  higher  officials  attractive  bunga- 
lows, a  bandstand,  where  twice  a  week  a  negro 
band  plays  by  ear,  and  plays  exceedingly  well. 
There  is  even  a  lawn-tennis  court,  where  the 
infrequent  visitor  to  the  Congo  is  welcomed, 
and,  by  the  courteous  Mr.  Vandamme,  who 
plays  tennis  as  well  as  he  does  every  thing  else, 
entertained.  Boma  is  the  shop  window  of 
Leopold's  big  store.  The  good  features  of 
Boma  are  like  those  attractive  articles  one 
sometimes  sees  in  a  shop  window,  but  which 
in  the  shop  one  fails  to  find — at  least,  I  did 

not  find  them  in  the  shop.     Outside  of  Boma 

62 


THE  CAPITAL  OF  THE  CONGO 

I  looked  in  vain  for  a  school  conducted  by  the 
State,  like  the  one  at  Boma,  such  as  those  the 
United  States  Government  gave  by  the  hun- 
dred to  the  Philippines.  I  found  not  one. 
And  I  looked  for  such  a  hospital  as  the  one  I 
saw  at  Boma,  such  as  our  government  has 
placed  for  its  employes  along,  and  at  both 
ends  of,  the  Isthmus  of  Panama,  and,  except 
for  the  one  at  Leopoldville,  I  saw  none. 

In  spite  of  the  fact  that  Boma  is  a"  European 
watering-place,"  all  the  servants  of  the  State 
with  whom  I  talked  wanted  to  get  away  from 
it,  especially  those  who  already  had  served  in 
the  interior.  To  appreciate  what  Boma  lacks 
one  has  only  to  visit  the  neighboring  seaports 
on  the  same  coast;  the  English  towns  of  Sierra 
Leone  and  Calabar,  the  French  town  of  Libre- 
ville in  the  French  Congo,  the  German  seaport 
Duala  in  the  Cameroons,  but  especially  Cala- 
bar in  Southern  Nigeria.  In  actual  existence 
the  new  Calabar  is  eight  years  younger  than 
Boma,  and  in  its  municipal  government,  its 
street-making,  cleaning,  and  lighting,  wharfs, 
barracks,  prisons,  hospitals,  it  is  a  hundred 
years  in  advance.  Boma  is  not  a  capital;  it 
is  the  distributing  factory  for  a  huge  trading 

63 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

concern,  and  a  particularly  selfish  one.  There 
is,  as  I  have  said,  only  one  wharf,  and  at  that 
wharf,  without  paying  the  State,  only  State 
boats  may  discharge  cargo,  so  the  English, 
Dutch,  and  German  boats  are  forced  to  "tie 
up"  along  the  river  front.  There  the  grass  is 
eight  feet  high  and  breeds  mosquitoes  and 
malaria,  and  conceals  the  wary  crocodile.  At 
night,  from  the  deck  of  the  steamer,  all  one 
can  see  of  this  capital  is  a  fringe  of  this  high 
grass  in  the  light  from  the  air  ports,  and  on 
shore  three  gas-lamps.  No  cafes  are  open,  no 
sailors  carouse,  no  lighted  window  suggests 
that  some  one  is  giving  a  dinner,  that  some  one 
is  playing  bridge.  Darkness,  gloom,  silence 
mark  this  "  European  watering-place." 

"You  ask  me,"  demanded  a  Belgian  lieu- 
tenant one  night  as  we  stood  together  by  the 
rail,  "whether  I  like  better  the  bush,  where 
there  is  no  white  man  in  a  hundred  miles,  or 
to  be  stationed  at  Boma  ? " 

He  threw  out  his  hands  at  the  gas-lamps, 
rapidly  he  pointed  at  each  of  them  in  turn. 

"Voila,  Boma!"  he  said. 

From  Boma  we  steamed  six  hours  farther  up 

the  river  to  Matadi.     On  the  way  we  stopped 

64 


THE  CAPITAL  OF  THE  CONGO 

at  Noqui,  the  home  of  Portuguese  traders  on 
the  Portuguese  bank,  which,  as  one  goes  up- 
stream, lies  to  starboard.  Here  the  current 
runs  at  from  four  to  five  miles  an  hour,  and 
has  so  sharply  cut  away  the  bank  that  we  are 
able  to  run  as  near  to  it  with  the  stern  of  our 
big  ship  as  though  she  were  a  canoe.  To  one 
used  more  to  ocean  than  to  Congo  traffic  it  was 
somewhat  bewildering  to  see  the  five-thou- 
sand-ton steamer  make  fast  to  a  tree,  a  sand- 
bank looming  up  three  fathoms  off  her  quarter, 
and  the  blades  of  her  propeller,  as  though  they 
were  the  knives  of  a  lawn-mower,  cutting  the 
eel-grass. 

At  Matadi  the  Congo  makes  one  of  her 
lightning  changes.  Her  banks,  which  have 
been  low  and  woody,  with,  on  the  Portuguese 
side,  glimpses  of  boundless  plateaux,  become 
towering  hills  of  rock.  At  Matadi  the  cata- 
racts and  rapids  begin,  and  for  two  hundred 
miles  continue  to  Stanley  Pool,  which  is  the 
beginning  of  the  Upper  Congo.  Leopoldville 
is  situated  on  Stanley  Pool,  just  to  the  right  of 
where  the  rapids  start  their  race  to  the  south. 
With  Leopoldville  above  and  Boma  below,  still 
nearer  the  mouth  of  the  river,  Matadi  makes  a 

6s 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

centre  link  in  the  chain  of  the  three  important 
towns  of  the  Lower  Congo. 

When  Henry  M.  Stanley  was  halted  by  the 
cataracts  and  forced  to  leave  the  river  he  dis- 
embarked his  expedition  on  the  bank  opposite 
Matadi,  and  a  mile  farther  up-stream.  It  was 
from  this  point  he  dragged  and  hauled  his 
boats,  until  he  again  reached  smooth  water  at 
Stanley  Pool.  The  wagons  on  which  he 
carried  the  boats  still  can  be  seen  lying  on 
the  bank,  broken  and  rusty.  Like  the  sight 
of  old  gun  carriages  and  dismantled  can- 
non, they  give  one  a  distinct  thrill.  Now, 
on  the  bank  opposite  from  where  they  lie, 
the  railroad  runs  from  Matadi  to  Leopold- 
ville. 

The  Congo  forces  upon  one  a  great  ad- 
miration for  Stanley.  Unless  civilization  ut- 
terly alters  it,  it  must  always  be  a  monument 
to  his  courage,  and  as  you  travel  farther  and 
see  the  difficulties  placed  in  his  way,  your  ad- 
miration increases.  There  are  men  here  who 
make  little  of  what  Stanley  accomplished;  but 
they  are  men  who  seldom  leave  their  own  com- 
pound, and,  who,  when  they  do  go  up  the 
river,  travel  at  ease,  not  in  a  canoe,  or  on  foot 

66 


THE  CAPITAL  OF  THE  CONGO 

through  the  jungle,  but  in  the  smoking-room 
of  the  steamer  and  in  a  first-class  railroad 
carriage.  That  they  are  able  so  to  travel  is 
due  to  the  man  they  would  belittle.  The  nick- 
name given  to  Stanley  by  the  natives  is  to-day 
the  nickname  of  the  government.  Matadi 
means  rock.  When  Stanley  reached  the  town 
of  Matadi,  which  is  surrounded  entirely  by 
rock,  he  began  with  dynamite  to  blast  roads  for 
his  caravan.  The  natives  called  him  Bula 
Matadi,  the  Breaker  of  Rocks,  and,  as  in  those 
days  he  was  the  Government,  the  Law,  and 
the  Prophets,  Bula  Matadi,  who  then  was  the 
white  man  who  governed,  now  signifies  the 
white  man's  government.  But  it  is  a  very 
different  government,  and  a  very  different 
white  man.  With  the  natives  the  word  is 
universal.  They  say  "Bula  Matadi  wood 
post."  "Not  traders*  chop,  Bula  Matadi's 
chop."  "Him  no  missionary  steamer,  him 
Bula  Matadi  steamer." 

The  town  of  Matadi  is  of  importance  as  the 
place  where,  owing  to  the  rapids,  passengers 
and  cargoes  are  reshipped  on  the  railroad  to 
the  haut  Congo.     It  is  a  railroad  terminus  only, 

and  it  looks  it.     The  railroad  station  and  store- 

67 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

houses  are  close  to  the  river  bank,  and,  spread 
over  several  acres  of  cinders,  are  the  railroad 
yard  and  machine  shops.  Above  those  build- 
ings of  hot  corrugated  zinc  and  the  black  soil 
rises  a  great  rock.  It  is  not  so  large  as  Gibral- 
tar, or  so  high  as  the  Flatiron  Building,  but  it 
is  a  little  more  steep  than  either.  Three  nar- 
row streets  lead  to  its  top.  They  are  of  flat 
stones,  with  cement  gutters.  The  stones 
radiate  the  heat  of  stove  lids.  They  are  worn 
to  a  mirror-like  smoothness,  and  from  their 
surface  the  sun  strikes  between  your  eyes,  at 
the  pit  of  your  stomach,  and  the  soles  of  your 
mosquito  boots.  The  three  streets  lead  to  a 
parade  ground  no  larger  than  and  as  bare  as  a 
brickyard.  It  is  surrounded  by  the  buildings 
of  Bula  Matadi,  the  post-office,  the  custom- 
house, the  barracks,  and  the  Cafe  Franco- 
Beige.  It  has  a  tableland  fifty  yards  wide  of 
yellow  clay  so  beaten  by  thousands  of  naked 
feet,  so  baked  by  the  heat,  that  it  is  as  hard  as  a 
brass  shield.  Other  tablelands  may  be  higher, 
but  this  is  the  one  nearest  the  sun.  You  cross 
it  wearily,  in  short  rushes,  with  your  heart  in 
your  throat,  and  seeking  shade,  as  a  man  cross- 
ing the  zone  of  fire  seeks  cover  from  the  bullets. 

68 


THE  CAPITAL  OF  THE  CONGO 

When  you  reach  the  cool,  dirty  custom-house, 
with  walls  two  feet  thick,  you  congratulate 
yourself  on  your  escape;  you  look  back  into 
the  blaze  of  the  flaming  plaza  and  wonder  if 
you  have  the  courage  to  return. 

At  the  custom-house  I  paid  duty  on  articles 
I  could  not  possibly  have  bought  anywhere  in 
the  Congo,  as,  for  instance,  a  tent  and  a  fold- 
ing-bed, and  for  a  license  to  carry  arms.  A 
young  man  with  a  hammer  and  tiny  branding 
irons  beat  little  stars  and  the  number  of  my 
license  to  porter  d*armes  on  the  stock  of  each 
weapon.  Without  permission  of  Bula  Matadi 
on  leaving  the  Congo,  one  can  not  sell  his 
guns,  or  give  them  away.  This  is  a  precau- 
tion to  prevent  weapons  falling  into  the  hands 
of  the  native.  For  some  reason  a  native  with 
a  gun  alarms  Bula  Matadi.  Just  on  the  other 
bank  of  the  river  the  French,  who  do  not  seem 
to  fear  the  black  brother,  sell  him  flint-lock 
rifles,  as  many  as  his  heart  desires. 

On  the  steamer  there  was  a  mild  young  mis- 
sionary coming  out,  for  the  first  time,  to  whom 
some  unobserving  friend  had  given  a  fox- 
terrier.     The  young  man  did  not  care  for  the 

dog.     He  had  never  owned  a  dog,  and  did  not 

69 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

know  what  to  do  with  this  one.  Her  name  was 
"Fanny/*  and  only  by  the  efforts  of  all  on 
board  did  she  reach  the  Congo  alive.  There 
was  no  one,  from  the  butcher  to  the  captain, 
including  the  passengers,  who  had  not  shielded 
Fanny  from  the  cold,  and  later  from  the  sun, 
fed  her,  bathed  her,  forced  medicine  down  her 
throat,  and  raced  her  up  and  down  the  spar 
deck.  Consequently  we  all  knew  Fanny,  and 
it  was  a  great  shock  when  from  the  custom- 
house I  saw  her  running  around  the  blazing 
parade  ground,  her  eyes  filled  with  fear  and 
**  lost  dog"  written  all  over  her,  from  her  droop- 
ing tongue  to  her  drooping  tail.  Captain  Bur- 
ton and  I  called  "  Fanny,"  and,  not  seeking 
suicide  for  ourselves,  sent  half  a  dozen  black 
boys  to  catch  her.  But  Fanny  never  liked  her 
black  uncles;  on  the  steamer  the  Kroo  boys 
learned  to  give  her  the  length  of  her  chain,  and 
so  we  were  forced  to  plunge  to  her  rescue  into 
the  valley  of  heat.  Perhaps  she  thought  we 
were  again  going  to  lock  her  up  on  the  steamer, 
or  perhaps  that  it  was  a  friendly  game,  for  she 
ran  from  us  as  fast  as  from  the  black  boys.  In 
Matadi  no  one  ever  had  crossed  the  parade 

ground  except  at   a  funeral  march,  and  the 

70 


Bush  Boys  in  the  Plaza  at  Matadi  Seeking  Shade. 


THE  CAPITAL  OF  THE  CONGO 

spectacle  of  two  large  white  men  playing  tag 
with  a  small  fox-terrier  attracted  an  immense 
audience.  The  officials  and  clerks  left  work 
and  peered  between  the  iron-barred  windows, 
the  "  prisoners  "  in  chains  ceased  breaking  rock 
and  stared  dumbly  from  the  barracks,  the 
black  "sentries"  shrieked  and  gesticulated, 
the  naked  bush  boys,  in  from  a  long  caravan 
journey,  rose  from  the  side  of  their  burdens 
and  commented  upon  our  manoeuvres  in 
gloomy,  guttural  tones.  I  suspect  they  thought 
we  wanted  Fanny  for  **  chop."  Finally  Fan- 
ny ran  into  the  legs  of  a  German  trader, 
who  grabbed  her  by  the  neck  and  held  her 
up  to  us. 

"You  want  him?     Hey?"  he  shouted. 

"Ay,  man,"  gasped  Burton,  now  quite  pur- 
ple, "did  you  think  we  were  trying  to  amuse 
the  dog?" 

I  made  a  leash  of  my  belt,  and  the  captain 
returned  to  the  ship  dragging  his  prisoner 
after  him.  An  hour  later  I  met  the  youthful 
missionary  leading  Fanny  by  a  rope. 

"I  must  tell  you  about  Fanny,"  he  cried. 

"After  I  took  her  to  the  Mission  I  forgot  to 

tie  her  up — as  I  suppose  I  should  have  done 

71 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  QF  AFRICA 

— and  she  ran  away.  But,  would  you  believe 
it,  she  found  her  way  straight  back  to  the  ship. 
Was  it  not  intelligent  of  her  ?  '* 

I  was  too  far  gone  with  apoplexy,  heat 
prostration,  and  sunstroke  to  make  any  an- 
swer, at  least  one  that  I  could  make  to  a 
missionary. 

The  next  morning  Fanny,  the  young  mis- 
sionary, and  I  left  for  Leopoldville  on  the  rail- 
road. It  is  a  narrow-gauge  railroad  built  near 
Matadi  through  the  solid  rock  and  later  twist- 
ing and  turning  so  often  that  at  many  places 
one  can  see  the  track  on  three  different  levels. 
It  is  not  a  State  road,  but  was  built  and  is 
owned  by  a  Dutch  company,  and,  except  that 
it  charges  exorbitant  rates  and  does  not  keep 
its  carriages  clean,  it  is  well  run,  and  the  road- 
bed is  excellent.  But  it  runs  a  passenger  train 
only  three  times  a  week,  and  though  the  dis- 
tance is  so  short,  and  though  the  train  starts 
at  6 130  in  the  morning,  it  docs  not  get  you  to 
Leopoldville  the  same  day.  Instead,  you  must 
rest  over  night  at  Thysvillc  and  start  at  seven 
the  next  morning.  That  afternoon  at  three 
you  reach  Leopoldville.     For  the  two  hundred 

and  fifty  miles  the  fare  is  two  hundred  francs, 

73 


THE  CAPITAL  OF  THE  CONGO 

and  one  is  limited  to  sixty  pounds  of  luggage. 
That  was  the  weight  allowed  by  the  Japanese 
to  each  war  correspondent,  and  as  they  gave 
us  six  months  in  Tokio  in  which  to  do  nothing 
else  but  weigh  our  equipment,  I  left  Matadi 
without  a  penalty.  Had  my  luggage  exceeded 
the  limit,  for  each  extra  pound  I  would  have 
had  to  pay  the  company  ten  cents.  To  the 
Belgian  officers  and  agents  who  go  for  three 
years  to  serve  the  State  in  the  bush  the  regula- 
tion is  especially  harsh,  and  in  a  company  so 
rich,  particularly  mean.  To  many  a  poor 
officer,  and  on  the  pay  they  receive  there  are 
no  rich  ones,  the  tax  is  prohibitive.  It  forces 
them  to  leave  behind  medicines,  clothing, 
photographic  supplies,  all  ammunition,  which 
means  no  chance  of  helping  out  with  duck  and 
pigeon  the  daily  menu  of  goat  and  tinned 
sausages,  and,  what  is  the  greatest  hardship,  all 
books.  This  regulation,  which  the  State  per- 
mitted to  the  concessionaires  of  the  railroad, 
sends  the  agents  of  the  State  into  the  wilderness 
physically  and  mentally  unequipped,  and  it  is 
no  wonder  the  weaker  brothers  go  mad,  and 
act  accordingly. 

My  black  boys  travelled  second-class,  which 

73 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

means  an  open  car  with  narrow  seats  very  close 
together  and  a  wooden  roof.  On  these  cars 
passengers  are  allowed  twenty  pounds  of  lug- 
gage and  permitted  to  collect  two  hundred  and 
fifty  miles  of  heat  and  dust.  To  a  black  boy 
twenty  pounds  is  little  enough,  for  he  travels 
with  much  more  baggage  than  an  average 
"blanc."  I  am  not  speaking  of  the  Congo 
boy.  All  the  possessions  the  State  leaves  him 
he  could  carry  in  his  pockets,  and  he  has  no 
pockets.  But  wherever  he  goes  the  Kroo  boy, 
Mendi  boy,  or  Sierra  Leone  boy  carries  all 
his  belongings  with  him  in  a  tin  trunk  painted 
pink,  green,  or  yellow.  He  is  never  separated 
from  his  "box,'*  and  the  recognized  uniform 
of  a  Kroo  boy  at  work,  is  his  breechcloth,  and 
hanging  from  a  ribbon  around  his  knee,  the 
key  to  his  box.  If  a  boy  has  no  box  he  gener- 
ally carries  three  keys. 

In  the  first-class  car  were  three  French 
officers  en  route  to  Brazzaville,  the  capital  of 
the  French  Congo,  and  a  dog,  a  sad  mongrel, 
very  dirty,  very  hungry.  On  each  side  of  the 
tiny  toy  car  were  six  revolving-chairs,  so  the 
four  men,  not  to  speak  of  the  dog,  quite  filled 
it.     And  to  our  own  bulk  each  added  hand- 

74 


THE  CAPITAL  OF  THE  CONGO 

bags,  cases  of  beer,  helmets,  gun-cases,  cam- 
eras, water-bottles,  and,  as  the  road  does  not 
supply  food  of  any  kind,  his  chop-box.  A 
chop-box  is  an5rthing  that  holds  food,  and  for 
food  of  every  kind,  for  the  hours  of  feeding,  and 
the  verb  "to  feed,"  on  the  West  Coast,  the  only 
word,  the  "lazy"  word,  is  "chop." 

The  absent-minded  young  missionary,  with 
Fanny  jammed  between  his  ankles,  and  looking 
out  miserably  upon  the  world,  and  two  other 
young  missionaries,  travelled  second-class. 

They  were  even  more  crowded  together  than 
were  we,  but  not  so  much  with  luggage  as  with 
humanity.  But  as  a  protest  against  the  high 
charges  of  the  railroad  the  missionaries  always 
travel  in  the  open  car.  These  three  young 
men  were  for  the  first  time  out  of  England,  and 
in  any  fashion  were  glad  to  start  on  their  long 
journey  up  the  Congo  to  Bolobo.  To  them 
whatever  happened  was  a  joke.  It  was  a  joke 
even  when  the  colored  "wife"  of  one  of  the 
French  officers  used  the  broad  shoulders  of  one 
of  them  as  a  pillow  and  slept  sweetly.  She  was 
a  large,  good-natured,  good-looking  mulatto, 
and  at  the  frequent  stations  the  French  officer 
ran  back  to  her  with  "white  man's  chop,"a  tin 

75 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

of  sausages,  a  pineapple,  a  bottle  of  beer.  She 
drank  the  beer  from  the  bottle,  and  with  re- 
ligious tolerance  offered  it  to  the  Baptists. 
They  assured  her  without  the  least  regret  that 
they  were  teetotalers.  To  the  other  blacks  in 
the  open  car  the  sight  of  a  white  man  waiting 
on  one  of  their  own  people  was  a  thrilling  spec- 
tacle. They  regarded  the  woman  who  could 
command  such  services  with  respect.  It 
would  be  interesting  to  know  what  they 
thought  of  the  white  man.  At  each  station 
the  open  car  disgorged  its  occupants  to  fill 
with  water  the  beer  bottle  each  carried,  and 
to  buy  from  the  natives  kwango,  the  black 
man's  bread,  a  flaky,  sticky  flour  that  tastes 
like  boiled  chestnuts;  and  pineapples  at  a 
franc  for  ten.  And  such  pineapples!  Not 
hard  and  rubber-like,  as  we  know  them  at 
home,  but  delicious,  juicy,  melting  in  the 
mouth  like  hothouse  grapes,  and,  also,  after 
each  mouthful,  making  a  complete  bath  neces- 
sary. One  of  the  French  officers  had  a  lump 
of  ice  which  he  broke  into  pieces  and  divided 
with  the  others.  They  saluted  magnificently 
many  times,  and  as  each  drowned  the  morsel 

in  his  tin  cup  of  beer,  one  of  them  cried  with 

76 


THE  CAPITAL  OF  THE  CONGO 

perfect  simplicity:  "C*est  Paris!"  This  re- 
minded me  that  the  ship's  steward  had  placed 
much  ice  in  my  chop  basket,  and  I  carried 
some  of  it  to  another  car  in  which  were  five  of 
the  White  Sisters.  For  nineteen  days  I  had 
been  with  them  on  the  steamer,  but  they  had 
spoken  to  no  one,  and  I  was  doubtful  how  they 
would  accept  my  offering.  But  the  Mother 
Superior  gave  permission,  and  they  took  the 
ice  through  the  car  window,  their  white  hoods 
bristling  with  the  excitement  of  the  adventure. 
They  were  on  their  way  to  a  post  still  two 
months*  journey  up  the  river,  nearly  to  Lake 
Tanganyika,  and  for  three  years  or,  possibly, 
until  they  died,  that  was  the  last  ice  they  would 
see. 

At  Bongolo  station  the  division  superinten- 
dent came  in  the  car  and  everybody  offered 
him  refreshment,  and  in  return  he  told  us,  in 
the  hope  of  interesting  us,  of  a  washout,  and 
then  casually  mentioned  that  an  hour  before  an 
elephant  had  blocked  the  track.  It  seemed  so 
much  too  good  to  be  true  that  I  may  have  ex- 
pressed some  doubt,  for  he  said:  "Why,  of 
course  and  certainly.  Already  this  morning 
one  was  at  Sariski  Station  and  another  at 

77 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  QF  AFRICA 

Sipcto."  And  instead  of  looking  out  of  the 
window  I  had  been  reading  an  American  mag- 
azine, filched  from  the  smoking-room,  which 
was  one  year  old! 

At  Thysville  the  railroad  may  have  opened 
a  hotel,  but  when  I  was  there  to  hunt  for  a 
night's  shelter  it  turned  you  out  bag  and  bag- 
gage. The  French  officers  decided  to  risk 
a  Portuguese  trading  store  known  as  the 
"Ideal  Hotel,"  and  the  missionaries  very 
kindly  gave  me  the  freedom  of  their  Rest 
House.  It  is  kept  open  for  those  of  the  Mis- 
sion who  pass  between  the  Upper  and  Lower 
Congo.  At  the  station  the  young  missionaries 
were  met  by  two  older  missionaries — Mr. 
Weekes,  who  furnished  the  "Commission  of 
Enquiry"  with  much  evidence,  which  they 
would  not,  or  were  not  allowed  to,  print,  and 
Mr.  Jennings.  With  them  were  twenty  "boys" 
from  the  Mission  and,  with  each  of  them  car- 
rying a  piece  of  our  baggage  on  his  head,  we 
climbed  the  hill,  and  I  was  given  a  clean,  com- 
fortable, completely  appointed  bedroom.  Our 
combined  chop  we  turned  over  to  a  black 
brother.     He   is   the   custodian   of  the   Rest 

House  and  an  excellent  cook.     While  he  was 

78 


THE  CAPITAL  OF  THE  CONGO 

preparing  it  my  boys  spread  out  my  folding 
rubber  tub.  Had  I  closed  the  door  I  should 
have  smothered,  so,  in  the  presence  of  twenty 
interested  black  Baptists,  I  took  an  embarrass- 
ing but  one  of  the  most  necessary  baths  I  can 
remember. 

There  still  was  a  piece  of  the  ice  remaining, 
and  as  the  interest  in  the  bathtub  had  begun  to 
drag  I  handed  it  to  one  of  my  audience.  He 
yelled  as  though  I  had  thrust  into  his  hand  a 
drop  of  vitriol,  and,  leaping  in  the  air,  threw 
the  ice  on  the  floor  and  dared  any  one  to  touch 
it.  From  the  "personal"  boys  who  had 
travelled  to  Matadi  the  Mission  boys  had 
heard  of  ice.  But  none  had  ever  seen  it. 
They  approached  it  as  we  would  a  rattlesnake. 
Each  touched  it  and  then  sprang  away. 
Finally  one,  his  eyes  starting  from  his  head, 
cautiously  stroked  the  inoffensive  brick  and 
then  licked  his  fingers.  The  effect  was  in- 
stantaneous. He  assured  the  others  it  was 
"good  chop,"  and  each  of  them  sat  hunched 
about  it  on  his  heels,  stroking  it,  and  licking 
his  fingers,  and  then  with  delighted  thrills 
rubbing  them  over  his  naked  body.  The 
little  block  of  ice  that  at  Liverpool  was  only  a 

79 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

"quart  of  water"  had  assumed  the  value  of  a 
diamond. 

Dinner  was  enlivened  by  an  incident.  Mr. 
Weekes,  with  orders  simply  to  "fry  these," 
had  given  to  the  assistant  of  the  cook  two 
tins  of  sausages.  The  small  chef  presented 
them  to  us  in  the  pan  in  which  he  had 
cooked  them,  but  he  had  obeyed  instruc- 
tions to  the  letter  and  had  fried  the  tins 
unopened. 

After  dinner  we  sat  until  late,  while  the 
older  men  told  the  young  missionaries  of 
atrocities  of  which,  in  the  twenty  years  and 
within  the  last  three  years,  they  had  been 
witnesses.  Already  in  Mr.  Morel's  books  I 
had  read  their  testimony,  but  hearing  from  the 
men  themselves  the  tales  of  outrage  and  cruelty 
gave  them  a  fresh  and  more  intimate  value, 
and  sent  me  to  bed  hot  and  sick  with  indigna- 
tion. But,  nevertheless,  the  night  I  slept  at 
Thysville  was  the  only  cool  one  I  knew  in  the 
Congo.  It  was  as  cool  as  is  a  night  in  autumn 
at  home.  Thysville,  between  the  Upper  and 
the  Lower  Congo,  with  its  fresh  mountain  air, 
is  an  obvious  site  for  a  hospital  for  the  servants 
of  the  State.     To  the  Congo  it  should  be  what 

So 


THE  CAPITAL  OF  THE  CONGO 

Simla  is  to  the  sick  men  of  India;  but  the 
State  is  not  running  hospitals.  It  is  in  the 
rubber  business. 

All  steamers  for  the  Upper  Congo  and  her 
great  tributaries,  whether  they  belong  to  the 
State  or  the  Missions,  start  from  Leopoldville. 
There  they  fit  out  for  voyages,  some  of  which 
last  three  and  four  months.  So  it  is  a  place 
of  importance,  but,  like  Boma,  it  looks  as 
though  the  people  who  yesterday  built  it 
meant  to-morrow  to  move  out.  The  river- 
front is  one  long  dump-heap.  It  is  a  grave- 
yard for  rusty  boilers,  deck-plates,  chains,  fire- 
bars. The  interior  of  the  principal  storehouse 
for  ships*  supplies,  directly  in  front  of  the  office 
of  the  captain  of  the  port,  looks  like  a  junk- 
shop  for  old  iron  and  newspapers.  I  should 
have  enjoyed  taking  the  captain  of  the  port  by 
the  neck  and  showing  him  the  water-front  and 
marine  shops  at  Calabar;  the  wharfs  and 
quays  of  stone,  the  open  places  spread  with 
gravel,  the  whitewashed  cement  gutters,  the 
spare  parts  of  machinery,  greased  and  labeled 
in  their  proper  shelves,  even  the  condemned 
scrap-iron  in  orderly  piles;  the  whole  yard 
as  trim  as  a  battleship. 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

On  the  river-front  at  Leopoldville  a  grossly 
fat  man,  collarless,  coatless,  purple-faced, 
perspiring,  was  rushing  up  and  down.  He 
was  the  captain  of  the  port.  Black  women  had 
assembled  to  greet  returning  black  soldiers, 
and  the  captain  was  calling  upon  the  black 
sentries  to  drive  them  away.  The  sentries, 
yelling,  fell  upon  the  women  with  their  six-foot 
staves  and  beat  them  over  the  head  and  bare 
shoulders,  and  as  they  fled,  screaming,  the 
captain  of  the  port  danced  in  the  sun  shaking 
his  fists  after  them  and  raging  violently. 
Next  morning  I  was  told  he  had  tried  to  calm 
his  nerves  with  absinthe,  which  is  not  par- 
ticularly good  for  nerves,  and  was  exceedingly 
unwell.  I  was  sorry  for  him.  The  picture  of 
discipline  afforded  by  the  glazed-eyed  official, 
reeling  and  cursing  in  the  open  street,  had 
been  illuminating. 

Although  at  Leopoldville  the  State  has  failed 

to  build  wharfs,  the  esthetic  features  of  the 

town  have  not  been  neglected,  and  there  is 

a  pretty  plaza  called  Stanley  Park.     In  the 

centre  of  this  plaza  is  a  pillar  with,  at  its  base, 

a  bust  of  Leopold,  and  on  the  top  of  the  pillar 

a  plaster-of-Paris  lady,  nude,  and,  not  unlike 

82 


The  Monument  in  Stanley  Park,  Erected,  not  to  Stanley, 
but  to  Leopold. 


THE  CAPITAL  OF  THE  CONGO 

the  Bacchante  of  MacMonnies.  Not  so  much 
from  the  likeness  as  from  history,  I  deduced 
that  the  lady  must  be  Cleo  de  Merode.  But 
whether  the  monument  is  erected  to  her  or  to 
Leopold,  or  to  both  of  them,  I  do  not  know. 

I  left  Leopoldville  in  the  Deliverance.  Some 
of  the  State  boats  that  make  the  long  trip  to 
Stanleyville  are  very  large  ships.  They  have 
plenty  of  deck  room  and  many  cabins.  With 
their  flat,  raft-like  hull,  their  paddle-wheel 
astern,  and  the  covered  sun  deck,  they  re- 
semble gigantic  house-boats.  Of  one  of  these 
boats  the  Deliverance  was  only  one-third  the 
size,  but  I  took  passage  on  her  because  she 
would  give  me  a  chance  to  see  not  only  some- 
thing of  the  Congo,  but  also  one  of  its  great 
tributaries,  the  less  travelled  Kasai.  The 
Deliverance  was  about  sixty-five  feet  over  all 
and  drew  three  feet  of  water.  She  was  built 
like  a  mud-scow,  with  a  deck  of  iron  plates. 
Amidships,  on  this  deck,  was  a  tiny  cabin  with 
berths  for  two  passengers  and  standing  room 
for  one.  The  furnaces  and  boiler  were  for- 
ward, banked  by  piles  of  wood.  All  the  river 
boats  burn  only  wood.     Her  engines  were  in 

the  stern.     These  engines  and  the  driving-rod 

83 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

to  the  paddle-wheel  were  uncovered.  This 
gives  the  Deliverance  the  look  of  a  large  auto- 
mobile without  a  tonneau.  You  were  con- 
stantly wondering  what  had  gone  wrong  with 
the  carbureter,  and  if  it  rained  what  would 
happen  to  her  engines.  Supported  on  iron 
posts  was  an  upper  deck,  on  which,  forward, 
stood  the  captain's  box  of  a  cabin  and  directly 
in  front  of  it  the  steering-wheel.  The  tele- 
graph, which  signalled  to  the  openwork  engine 
below,  and  a  dining  table  as  small  as  a  chess- 
board, completely  filled  the  "bridge."  When 
we  sat  at  table  the  captain's  boy  could  only 
just  squeeze  himself  between  us  and  the  rail. 
It  was  like  dining  in  a  private  box.  And  cer- 
tainly no  theatre  ever  offered  such  scenery, 
nor  did  any  menagerie  ever  present  so  many 
strange  animals. 

We  were  four  white  men:  Captain  Jensen, 
his  engineer,  and  the  other  passenger.  Captain 
Anfossi,  a  young  Italian.  Before  he  reached 
his  post  he  had  to  travel  one  month  on  the 
Deliverance  and  for  another  month  walk 
through  the  jungle.  He  was  the  most  cheerful 
and  amusing  companion,  and  had  he  been  re- 
turning after  three  years  of  exile  to  his  home 

84 


THE  CAPITAL  OF  THE  CONGO 

he  could  not  have  been  more  brimful  of  spirits. 
Captain  Jensen  was  a  Dane  (almost  every 
river  captain  is  a  Swede  or  a  Dane)  and  talked 
a  little  English,  a  little  French,  and  a  little 
Bangala.  The  mechanician  was  a  Finn  and 
talked  the  native  Bangala,  and  Anfossi  spoke 
French.  After  chop,  when  we  were  all  as- 
sembled on  the  upper  deck,  there  would  be  the 
most  extraordinary  talks  in  four  languages,  or 
we  would  appoint  one  man  to  act  as  a  clearing- 
house, and  he  would  translate  for  the  others. 

On  the  lower  deck  we  carried  twenty  "wood 
boys,"  whose  duty  was  to  cut  wood  for  the 
furnace,  and  about  thirty  black  passengers. 
They  were  chiefly  soldiers,  who  had  finished 
their  period  of  service  for  the  State,  with  their 
wives  and  children.  They  were  crowded  on 
the  top  of  the  hatches  into  a  space  fifteen  by 
fifteen  feet  between  our  cabin  door  and  the 
furnace.  Around  the  combings  of  the  hatches, 
and  where  the  scuppers  would  have  been  had 
the  Deliverance  had  scuppers,  the  river  raced 
over  the  deck  to  a  depth  of  four  or  five  inches. 
When  the  passengers  wanted  to  wash  their  few 
clothes  or  themselves  they  carried  on  their  ab- 
lutions and  laundry  work  where  they  happened 

8s 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

to  be  sitting.  But  for  Anfossi  and  myself  to  go 
from  our  cabin  to  the  iron  ladder  of  the  bridge 
it  was  necessary  to  wade  both  in  the  water  and 
to  make  stepping  stones  of  the  passengers.  I 
do  not  mean  that  we  merely  stepped  over  an 
occasional  arm  or  leg.  I  mean  we  walked  on 
them.  You  have  seen  a  football  player,  in  a 
hurry  to  make  a  touchdown,  hurdle  without 
prejudice  both  friends  and  foes.  Our  progress 
was  like  this.  But  by  practice  we  became  so 
expert  that  without  even  awakening  them  we 
could  spring  lightly  from  the  plump  stomach 
of  a  black  baby  to  its  mother's  shoulder,  from 
there  leap  to  the  father's  ribs,  and  rebound 
upon  the  rungs  of  the  ladder. 

The  river  marched  to  the  sea  at  the  rate  of 
four  to  five  miles  an  hour.  The  Deliverance 
could  make  about  nine  knots  an  hour,  so  we 
travelled  at  the  average  rate  of  five  miles;  but 
for  the  greater  part  of  each  day  we  were  tied 
to  a  bank  while  the  boys  went  ashore  and  cut 
enough  wood  to  carry  us  farther.  And  we 
never  travelled  at  night.  Owing  to  the  chang- 
ing currents,  before  the  sun  set  we  ran  into 
shore  and  made  fast  to  a  tree.  I  explained 
how  in  America  the  river  boats  used  search- 

86 


"3    « 


THE  CAPITAL  OF  THE  CONGO 

lights,  and  was  told  that  on  one  boat  the  State 
had  experimented  with  a  searchhght,  but  that 
particular  searchlight  having  got  out  of  order 
the  idea  of  night  travelling  was  condemned. 

Ours  was  a  most  lazy  progress,  but  one 
with  the  most  beautiful  surroundings  and 
filled  with  entertainment.  From  our  private 
box  we  looked  out  upon  the  most  wonderful 
of  panoramas.  Sometimes  we  were  closely 
hemmed  in  by  mountains  of  light-green  grass, 
except  where,  in  the  hollows,  streams  tumbled 
in  tiny  waterfalls  between  gigantic  trees  hung 
with  strange  flowering  vines  and  orchids.  Or 
we  would  push  into  great  lakes  of  swirling 
brown  water,  dotted  with  flat  islands  over- 
grown with  reed  grass  higher  than  the  head  of 
a  man.  Again  the  water  turned  blue  and  the 
trees  on  the  banks  grew  into  forests  with  the 
look  of  cultivated,  well-cared-for  parks,  but 
with  no  sign  of  man,  not  even  a  mud  hut  or  a 
canoe;  only  the  strangest  of  birds  and  the 
great  river  beasts.  Sometimes  the  sky  was 
overcast  and  gray,  the  warm  rain  shut  us  in 
like  a  fog,  and  the  clouds  hid  the  peaks  of  the 
hills,  or  there  would  come  a  swift  black  tor- 
nado and  the  rain  beat  into  our  private  box, 

87 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

and  each  would  sit  crouched  in  his  rain  coat, 
while  the  engineer  smothered  his  driving-rods 
in  palm  oil,  and  the  great  drops  drummed 
down  upon  the  awning  and  drowned  the  fire 
in  our  pipes.  After  these  storms,  as  though 
it  were  being  pushed  up  from  below,  the  river 
seemed  to  rise  in  the  centre,  to  become  con- 
vex. By  some  optical  illusion,  it  seemed  to  fall 
away  on  either  hand  to  the  depth  of  three  or 
four  feet. 

But  as  a  rule  we  had  a  brilliant,  gorgeous 
sunshine  that  made  the  eddying  waters  flash 
and  sparkle,  and  caused  the  banks  of  sand  to 
glare  like  whitewashed  walls,  and  turn  the 
sharp,  hard  fronds  of  the  palms  into  glittering 
sword-blades.  The  movement  of  the  boat 
tempered  the  heat,  and  in  lazy  content  we  sat 
in  our  lookout  box  and  smiled  upon  the  world. 
Except  for  the  throb  of  the  engine  and  the  slow 
splash,  splash,  splash  of  the  wheel  there  was  no 
sound.  We  might  have  been  adrift  in  the 
heart  of  a  great  ocean.  So  complete  was  the 
silence,  so  few  were  the  sounds  of  man's  pres- 
ence, that  at  times  one  almost  thought  that  ours 
was  the  first  boat  to  disturb  the  Congo. 

Although  we  were  travelling  by  boat,  we 

88 


THE  CAPITAL  OF  THE  CONGO 

spent  as  much  time  on  land  as  on  the  water. 
Because  the  Deliverance  burnt  wood  and,  like 
an  invading  army,  "lived  on  the  country,"  she 
was  always  stopping  to  lay  in  a  supply.  That 
gave  Anfossi  and  myself  a  chance  to  visit  the 
native  villages  or  to  hunt  in  the  forest. 

To  feed  her  steamers  the  State  has  estab- 
lished along  the  river-bank  posts  for  wood, 
and  in  theory  at  these  places  there  always  is  a 
sufficient  supply  of  wood  to  carry  a  steamer 
to  the  next  post.  But  our  experience  was 
either  that  another  steamer  had  just  taken  all 
the  wood  or  that  the  boys  had  decided  to  work 
no  more  and  had  hidden  themselves  in  the 
bush.  The  State  posts  were  "clearings,"  less 
than  one  hundred  yards  square,  cut  out  of  the 
jungle.  Sometimes  only  black  men  were  in 
charge,  but  as  a  rule  the  chef  de  poste  was  a 
lonely,  fever-ridden  white,  whose  only  interest 
in  our  arrival  was  his  hope  that  we  might  spare 
him  quinine.  I  think  we  gave  away  as  many 
grains  of  quinine  as  we  received  logs  of  wood. 
Empty-handed  we  would  turn  from  the  wood 
post  and  steam  a  mile  or  so  farther  up  the 
river,  where  we  would  run  into  a  bank,  and  a 

boy  with  a  steel  hawser  would  leap  overboard 

89 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

and  tic  up  the  boat  to  the  roots  of  a  tree. 
Then  all  the  boys  would  disappear  into  the 
jungle  and  attack  the  primeval  forest.  Each 
was  supplied  with  a  machete  and  was  expected 
to  furnish  a  bras  of  wood.  A  bras  is  a  number 
of  sticks  about  as  long  and  as  thick  as  your 
arm,  placed  in  a  pile  about  three  feet  high  and 
about  three  feet  wide.  To  fix  this  measure 
the  head  boy  drove  poles  into  the  bank  three 
feet  apart,  and  from  pole  to  pole  at  the  same 
distance  from  the  ground  stretched  a  strip  of 
bark.  When  each  boy  had  filled  one  of  these 
openings  all  the  wood  was  carried  on  board, 
and  we  would  unhitch  the  Deliverance,  and 
she  would  proceed  to  burn  up  the  fuel  we  had 
just  collected.  It  took  the  twenty  boys  about 
four  hours  to  cut  the  wood,  and  the  Deliver- 
ance the  same  amount  of  time  to  burn  it.  It 
was  distinctly  a  hand-to-mouth  existence.  As 
I  have  pointed  out,  when  it  is  too  dark  to  see 
the  currents,  the  Congo  captains  never  at- 
tempt to  travel.  So  each  night  at  sunset  Cap- 
tain Jensen  ran  into  the  bank,  and  as  soon  as 
the  plank  was  out  all  the  black  passengers  and 
the  crew  passed  down  it  and  spent  the  night  on 

shore.     In  five  minutes  the  women  would  have 

90 


The  Native  Wife  of  a  Chef  de  Poste. 


THE  CAPITAL  OF  THE  CONGO 

the  fires  lighted  and  the  men  would  be  cutting 
grass  for  bedding  and  running  up  little  shelters 
of  palm  boughs  and  hanging  up  linen  strips 
that  were  both  tents  and  mosquito  nets. 

In  the  moonlight  the  natives  with  their 
camp-fires  and  torches  made  most  wonderful 
pictures.  Sometimes  for  their  sleeping  place 
the  captain  would  select  a  glade  in  the  jungle, 
or  where  a  stream  had  cut  a  little  opening  in 
the  forest,  or  a  sandy  island,  with  tall  rushes 
on  either  side  and  the  hot  African  moon  shin- 
ing on  the  white  sand  and  turning  the  palms 
to  silver,  or  they  would  pitch  camp  in  a  buffalo 
wallow,  where  the  grass  and  mud  had  been 
trampled  into  a  clay  floor  by  the  hoofs  of 
hundreds  of  wild  animals.  But  the  fact  that 
they  were  to  sleep  where  at  sunrise  and  at  sun- 
set came  buffaloes,  elephants,  and  panthers, 
disturbed  the  women  not  at  all,  and  as  they 
bent,  laughing,  over  the  iron  pots,  the  fire- 
light shone  on  their  bare  shoulders  and  was 
reflected  from  their  white  teeth  and  rolling 
eyes  and  brazen  bangles. 

Until  late  in  the  night  the  goats  would  bleat, 
babies  cry,  and  the  "boys"  and  "mammies" 
talked,  sang,  quarrelled,  beat  tom-toms,  and 

91 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

squeezed  mournful  groans  out  of  the  accordion 
of  civilization.  One  would  have  thought  we 
had  anchored  off  a  busy  village  rather  than  at 
a  place  where,  before  that  night,  the  inhabit- 
ants had  been  only  the  beasts  of  the  jungle  and 
the  river. 


IV 

AMERICANS    IN   THE    CONGO 

IN  trying  to  sum  up  what  I  found  in  the 
Congo  Free  State,  I  think  what  one  fails 
to  find  there  is  of  the  greatest  significance.  To 
tell  what  the  place  is  like,  you  must  tell  what 
it  lacks.  One  must  write  of  the  Congo  always 
in  the  negative.  It  is  as  though  you  asked: 
"What  sort  of  a  house  is  this  one  Jones  has 
built?"  and  were  answered:  "Well,  it  hasn't 
any  roof,  and  it  hasn't  any  cellar,  and  it  has 
no  windows,  floors,  or  chimneys.  It's  that 
kind  of  a  house." 

When  first  I  arrived  in  the  Congo  the  time  I 
could  spend  there  seemed  hopelessly  inade- 
quate. After  Fd  been  there  a  month,  it 
seemed  to  me  that  in  a  very  few  days  any  one 
could  obtain  a  painfully  correct  idea  of  the 
place,  and  of  the  way  it  is  administered.  If 
an  orchestra  starts  on  an  piece  of  music  with 
all  the  instruments  out  of  tune,  it  need  not 

93 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

play  through  the  entire  number  for  you  to 
know  that  the  instruments  are  out  of  tune. 

The  charges  brought  against  Leopold  II, 
as  King  of  the  Congo,  are  three : 

(a)  That  he  has  made  slaves  of  the  twenty 
million  blacks  he  promised  to  protect. 

(b)  That,  in  spite  of  his  promise  to  keep 
the  Congo  open  to  trade,  he  has  closed  it  to 
all  nations. 

(c)  That  the  revenues  of  the  country  and  all 
of  its  trade  he  has  retained  for  himself. 

Any  one  who  visits  the  Congo  and  remains 
only  two  weeks  will  be  convinced  that  of  these 
charges  Leopold  is  guilty.  In  that  time  he 
will  not  see  atrocities,  but  he  will  see  that  the 
natives  are  slaves,  that  no  foreigner  can  trade 
with  them,  that  in  the  interest  of  Leopold 
alone  the  country  is  milked. 

He  will  see  that  the  government  of  Leopold 
is  not  a  government.  It  preserves  the  per- 
quisites and  outward  signs  of  government.  It 
coins  money,  issues  stamps,  collects  taxes. 
But  it  assumes  none  of  the  responsibilities  of 
government.  The  Congo  Free  State  is  only  a 
great  trading  house.  And  in  it  Leopold  is  the 
only  wholesale  and  retail  trader.     He  gives  a 

94 


AMERICANS  IN  THE  CONGO 

bar  of  soap  for  rubber,  and  makes  a  "turn- 
over" of  a  cup  of  salt  for  ivory.  He  is  not  a 
monarch.     He  is  a  shopkeeper. 

And  were  the  country  not  so  rich  in  rubber 
and  ivory,  were  the  natives  not  sweated  so  se- 
verely, he  also  would  be  a  bankrupt  shopkeeper. 
For  the  Congo  is  not  only  one  vast  trading 
post,  but  also  it  is  a  trading  post  badly  man- 
aged. Even  in  the  republics  of  Central 
America  where  the  government  changes  so 
frequently,  and  where  each  new  president  is 
trying  to  make  hay  while  he  can,  there  is  better 
administration,  more  is  done  for  the  people, 
the  rights  of  other  nations  are  better  re- 
spected. 

Were  the  Congo  properly  managed,  it  would 
be  one  of  the  richest  territories  on  the  surface 
of  the  earth.  As  it  is,  through  ignorance  and 
cupidity,  it  is  being  despoiled  and  its  people 
are  the  most  wretched  of  human  beings.  In 
the  White  Book  containing  the  reports  of 
British  vice-consuls  on  conditions  in  the 
Congo  from  April  of  last  year  to  January 
of  this  year,  Mr.  Mitchell  tells  how  the 
enslavement  of  the  people  still  continues, 
how   "they"    (the    conscripts,    as    they    are 

95 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

called)  "are  hunted  in  the  forest  by  sol- 
diert ,  and  brought  in  chained  by  the  neck  like 
criminals."  They  then,  though  conscripted 
to  serve  in  the  army,  are  set  to  manual  labor. 
They  are  slaves.  The  difference  between  the 
slavery  under  Leopold  and  the  slavery  under 
the  Arab  raiders  is  that  the  Arab  was  the 
better  and  kinder  master.  He  took  "prison- 
ers'* just  as  Leopold  seizes  "conscripts,"  but 
he  had  too  much  foresight  to  destroy  whole 
villages,  to  carry  off  all  the  black  man's  live 
stock,  and  to  uproot  his  vegetable  gardens. 
He  purposed  to  return.  And  he  did  not  wish 
to  so  terrify  the  blacks  that  to  escape  from  him 
they  would  penetrate  farther  into  the  jungle. 
His  motive  was  purely  selfish,  but  his  methods, 
compared  with  those  of  Leopold,  were  almost 
considerate.  The  work  the  State  to-day 
requires  of  the  blacks  is  so  oppressive  that 
they  have  no  time,  no  heart,  to  labor  for  them- 
selves. 

In  every  other  colony — French,  English, 
German — in  the  native  villages  I  saw  vegetable 
gardens,  goats,  and  chickens,  large,  comfort- 
able, three-room  huts,  fences,  and,  especially 

in  the  German  settlement  of  the  Cameroons 

96 


AMERICANS  IN  THE  CONGO 

at  Duala,  many  flower  gardens.  In  Bell 
Town  at  Duala  I  walked  for  miles  through 
streets  lined  with  such  huts  and  gardens,  and 
saw  whole  families,  the  very  old  as  well  as  the 
very  young,  sitting  contentedly  in  the  shade 
of  their  trees,  or  at  work  in  their  gardens. 
In  the  Congo  native  villages  I  saw  but  one 
old  person,  of  chickens  or  goats  that  were  not 
to  be  given  to  the  government  as  taxes  I  saw 
none,  and  the  vegetable  gardens,  when  there 
were  any  such,  were  cultivated  for  the  benefit 
of  the  chef  de  poste,  and  the  huts  were  small, 
temporary,  and  filthy.  The  dogs  in  the  ken- 
nels on  my  farm  are  better  housed,  better  fed, 
and  much  better  cared  for,  whether  ill  or  well, 
than  are  the  twenty  millions  of  blacks  along 
the  Congo  River.  And  that  these  human 
beings  are  so  ill-treated  is  due  absolutely  to 
the  cupidity  of  one  man,  and  to  the  apathy  of 
the  rest  of  the  world.  And  it  is  due  as  much 
to  the  apathy  and  indifference  of  whoever  may 
read  this  as  to  the  silence  of  Elihu  Root  or  Sir 
Edward  Grey.  No  one  can  shirk  his  respon- 
sibility by  sneering,  "Am  I  my  brother's  keep- 
er ? "  The  Government  of  the  United  States 
and  the  thirteen  other  countries  have  promised 

97 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

to  protect  these  people,  to  care  for  their  "ma- 
terial and  moral  welfare,"  and  that  promise  is 
morally  binding  upon  the  people  of  those 
countries.  How  much  Leopold  cares  for  the 
material  welfare  of  the  natives  is  illustrated 
by  the  prices  he  pays  the  "boys"  who  worked 
on  the  government  steamer  in  which  I  went 
up  the  Kasai.  They  were  bound  on  a  three 
months'  voyage,  and  for  each  month's  work 
on  this  trip  they  were  given  in  payment  their 
rice  and  eighty  cents.  That  is,  at  the  end  of 
the  trip  they  received  what  in  our  money 
would  be  equivalent  to  two  dollars  and  forty 
cents.  And  that  they  did  not  receive  in 
money,  but  in  "trade  goods,"  which  are  worth 
about  ten  per  cent  less  than  their  money  value. 
So  that  of  the  two  dollars  and  eighty  cents 
that  is  due  them,  these  black  boys,  who  for 
three  months  sweated  in  the  dark  jungle  cut- 
ting wood,  are  robbed  by  this  King  of  twenty- 
four  cents.  One  would  dislike  to  grow  rich 
at  that  price. 

In  the  French  Congo  I  asked  the  traders  at 
Libreville  what  they  paid  their  boys  for  cutting 
mahogany.     I  found  the  price  was  four  francs 

a  day  without  "chop,"  or  three  and  a  half 

98 


AMERICANS  IN  THE  CONGO 

francs  with  "chop."  That  is,  on  one  side  of 
the  river  the  French  pay  in  cash  for  one  day's 
work  what  Leopold  pays  in  trade  goods  for 
the  work  of  a  month.  As  a  resuh  the  natives 
run  away  to  the  French  side,  and  often,  I  might 
almost  say  invariably,  when  at  the  poste  de  bois 
on  the  Congo  side  we  would  find  two  cords  of 
wood,  on  the  other  bank  at  the  post  for  the 
French  boats  we  would  count  two  hundred 
and  fifty  cords  of  wood.  I  took  photographs 
of  the  native  villages  in  all  the  colonies,  in 
order  to  show  how  they  compared — of  the 
French  and  Belgian  wood  posts,  the  one  well 
stocked  and  with  the  boys  lying  about  asleep 
or  playing  musical  instruments,  or  alert  to 
trade  and  barter,  and  on  the  Belgian  side  no 
wood,  and  the  unhappy  white  man  alone,  and 
generally  shivering  with  fever.  Had  the  photo- 
graphs only  developed  properly  they  would 
have  shown  much  more  convincingly  than  one 
can  write  how  utterly  miserable  is  the  condi- 
tion of  the  Congo  negro.  And  the  condition 
of  the  white  man  at  the  wood  posts  is  only  a 
little  better.  We  found  one  man  absolutely 
without  supplies.  He  was  only  twenty-four 
hours  distant  from  Leopoldville,  but  no  sup- 

99 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

plies  had  been  sent  him.  He  was  ill  with 
fever,  and  he  could  eat  nothing  but  milk. 
Captain  Jensen  had  six  cans  of  condensed 
milk,  which  the  State  calculated  should  suffice 
for  him  and  his  passengers  for  three  months. 
He  turned  the  lot  over  to  the  sick  man. 

We  found  another  white  man  at  the  first 
wood  post  on  the  Kasai  just  above  where  it 
meets  the  Congo.  He  was  in  bed  and  danger- 
ously ill  with  enteric  fever.  He  had  tele- 
graphed the  State  at  Leopoldville  and  a  box  of 
medicines  had  been  sent  to  him;  but  the  State 
doctors  had  forgotten  to  enclose  any  directions 
for  their  use.  We  were  as  ignorant  of  medi- 
cines as  the  man  himself,  and,  as  it  was  im- 
possible to  move  him,  we  were  forced  to  leave 
him  lying  in  his  cot  with  the  row  of  bottles 
and  tiny  boxes,  that  might  have  given  him 
life,  unopened  at  his  elbow.  It  was  ten  days 
before  the  next  boat  would  touch  at  his  post. 
I  do  not  know  that  it  reached  him  in  time. 
One  could  tell  dozens  of  such  stories  of  cruelty 
to  natives  and  of  injustice  and  neglect  to  the 
white  agents. 

The  fact  that  Leopold  has  granted  to  Amer- 
ican syndicates  control  over  two  great  terri- 


AMERICANS  IN  THE  CONGO 

tories  in  the  Congo  may  bring  about  a  better 
state  of  affairs,  and,  in  any  event,  it  may 
arouse  public  interest  in  this  country.  It  cer- 
tainly should  be  of  interest  to  Americans  that 
some  of  the  most  prominent  of  their  country- 
men have  gone  into  close  partnership  with  a 
speculator  as  unscrupulous  and  as  notorious 
as  is  Leopold,  and  that  they  are  to  exploit  a 
country  which  as  yet  has  been  developed  only 
by  the  help  of  slavery,  with  all  its  attendant 
evils  of  cruelty  and  torture. 

That  Leopold  has  no  right  to  give  these  con- 
cessions is  a  matter  which  chiefly  concerns  the 
men  who  are  to  pay  for  them,  but  it  is  an 
interesting  fact. 

The  Act  of  Berlin  expressly  states:  "ATo 
Power  which  exercises^  or  shall  exercise^  saver-- 
eign  rights  in  the  above-mentioned  regions, 
shall  he  allowed  to  grant  therein  a  monopoly  or 
favor  of  any  kind  in  matters  of  trade.'' 

Leopold  is  only  a  steward  placed  by  the 
Powers  over  the  Congo.  He  is  a  janitor. 
And  he  has  no  more  authority  to  give  even  a 
foot  of  territory  to  Belgians,  Americans,  or 
Chinamen  than  the  janitor  of  an  apartment 
house  has  authority  to  fill  the  rooms  with  his 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

wife's  relations  or  sell  the  coal  in  the  base- 
ment. 

The  charge  that  the  present  concessionaires 
have  no  title  that  any  independent  trader  or 
miner  need  respect  is  one  that  is  sure  to  be 
brought  up  when  the  Powers  throw  Leopold 
out,  and  begin  to  clean  house.  The  conces- 
sionaires take  a  sporting  chance  that  Leopold 
will  not  be  thrown  out.  It  should  be  remem- 
bered that  it  is  to  his  and  to  their  advantage 
to  see  that  he  is  not. 

In  November  of  1906,  Leopold  gave  the 
International  Forestry  and  Mining  Company 
of  the  Congo  mining  rights  in  territories  ad- 
joining his  private  park,  the  Domaine  de  la 
Couronne,  and  to  the  American  Congo  Com- 
pany he  granted  the  right  to  work  rubber  along 
the  Congo  River  to  where  it  joins  the  Kasai. 
This  latter  is  a  territory  of  four  thousand  square 
miles.  The  company  also  has  the  option 
within  the  next  eleven  years  of  buying  land  in 
any  part  of  a  district  which  is  nearly  one-half 
of  the  entire  Congo.  Of  the  Forestry  and 
Mining  Company  one-half  of  the  profits  go  to 
Leopold,  one-fourth  to  Belgians,  and  the  re- 
maining fourth  to  the  Americans.     Of  the 


AMERICANS  IN  THE  CONGO 

profits  of  the  American  Congo  Company,  Leo- 
pold is  entitled  to  one-half  and  the  Americans 
to  the  other  half.  This  company  was  one 
originally  organized  to  exploit  a  new  method 
of  manufacturing  crude  rubber  from  the  plant. 
The  company  was  taken  over  by  Thomas  F. 
Ryan  and  his  associates.  Back  of  both  com- 
panies are  the  Guggenheims,  who  are  to  per- 
form the  actual  work  in  the  mines  and  in  the 
rubber  plantation.  Early  in  March  a  large 
number  of  miners  and  engineers  were  selected 
by  John  Hays  Hammond,  the  chief  engineer 
of  the  Guggenheim  Exploration  Companies, 
and  A.  Chester  Beatty,  and  were  sent  to  ex- 
plore the  territory  granted  in  the  mining  con- 
cession. Another  force  of  experts  are  soon 
to  follow.  The  legal  representative  of  the 
syndicates  has  stated  that  in  the  Congo 
they  intend  to  move  "on  commercial  lines.** 
By  that  we  take  it  they  mean  they  will 
give  the  native  a  proper  price  for  his 
labor;  and  instead  of  offering  "bonuses**  and 
"commissions'*  to  their  white  employees  will 
pay  them  living  wages.  The  exact  terms  of 
the  concessions  are  wrapped  in  mystery.  Some 

say  the  territories  ceded  to  the  concessionaires 

103 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

are  to  be  governed  by  them,  policed  by  them, 
and  that  within  the  boundaries  of  these  con- 
cessions the  Americans  are  to  have  absolute 
control.  If  this  be  so  the  syndicates  are  enter- 
ing upon  an  experiment  which  for  Americans 
is  almost  without  precedent.  They  will  be 
virtually  what  in  England  is  called  a  chartered 
company,  with  the  difference  that  the  English- 
men receive  their  charter  from  their  own  gov- 
ernment, while  the  charter  under  which  the 
Americans  will  act  will  be  granted  by  a  for- 
eign Power,  and  for  what  they  may  do  in  the 
Congo  their  own  government  could  not  hold 
them  responsible.  They  are  answerable  only 
to  the  Power  that  issued  the  charter;  and  that 
Power  is  the  just,  the  humane,  the  merciful 
Leopold. 

The  history  of  the  early  days  of  chartered 
companies  in  Africa,  notoriously  those  of  the 
Congo,  Northern  Nigeria,  Rhodesia,  and  Ger- 
man Central  Africa  does  not  make  pleasant 
reading.  But  until  the  Americans  in  the 
Congo  have  made  this  experiment,  it  would  be 
most  unfair  (except  that  the  company  they 
choose  to  keep  leaves  them  open  to  suspicion) 

not  to  give  them  the  benefit  of  the  doubt. 

104 


AMERICANS  IN  THE  CONGO 

One  can  at  least  say  for  them  that  they  seem 
to  be  absolutely  ignorant  of  the  difficulties  that 
lie  before  them.  At  least  that  is  true  of  all 
of  them  to  whom  I  have  talked. 

The  attorney  of  the  Rubber  Company  when 
interviewed  by  a  representative  of  a  New  York 
paper  is  reported  to  have  said:  "We  have 
purchased  a  privilege  from  a  Sovereign  State 
and  propose  to  operate  it  along  purely  com- 
mercial lines.  With  King  Leopold's  manage- 
ment of  Congo  affairs  in  the  past,  or,  with 
what  he  may  do  in  an  administrative  way  in 
the  future,  we  have  absolutely  nothing  to  do/* 
The  italics  are  mine. 

When  asked:  "Under  your  concessions  are 
you  given  similar  powers  over  the  native  blacks 
as  are  enjoyed  by  other  concessionaires  ? "  the 
answer  of  the  attorney,  as  reported,  was :  "  The 
problem  of  labor  is  not  mentioned  in  the  con- 
cession agreement,  neither  is  the  question  of 
local  administration.  We  are  left  to  solve  the 
labor  problem  in  our  own  way,  on  a  purely 
commercial  basis,  and  with  the  question  of 
government  we  have  absolutely  nothing  what- 
ever to  do.  The  labor  problem  will  not  be 
formidable.     Our    mills    are    simple    affairs. 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

One  man  can  manage  them,  and  the  question 
of  the  labor  on  the  rubber  concession  is  re- 
duced to  the  minimum."  This  answer  of  the 
learned  attorney  shows  an  ignorance  of  "la- 
bor" conditions  in  the  Congo  which  is,  unless 
assumed,  absolutely  abject. 

If  the  American  syndicates  are  not  to  police 
and  govern  the  territories  ceded  them,  but  if 
these  territories  are  to  continue  to  be  admin- 
istered by  Leopold,  it  is  not  possible  for  the 
Americans  to  have  "absolutely  nothing  to  do" 
with  that  administration.  Leopold's  sole  idea 
of  administration  is  that  every  black  man  is 
his  slave,  in  other  words,  the  only  men  the 
Americans  can  depend  upon  for  labor  are 
slaves.  Of  the  profits  of  these  American  com- 
panies Leopold  is  to  receive  one-half.  He  will 
work  his  rubber  with  slaves. 

Are  the  Americans  going  to  use  slaves  also, 
or  do  they  intend  "on  commercial  lines"  to 
pay  those  who  work  for  them  living  wages  ? 
And  if  they  do,  at  the  end  of  the  fiscal  year, 
having  paid  a  fair  price  for  labor,  are  they 
prepared  to  accept  a  smaller  profit  than  will 
their  partner  Leopold,  who  obtains  his  labor 
with  the  aid  of  a  chain  and  a  whip  ? 

io6 


The  Laboring  Man  Upon  Whom  the  American  Concessionaires 
Must  Depend 


AMERICANS  IN  THE  CONGO 

The  attorney  for  the  company  airily  says: 
"The  labor  problem  will  not  be  formidable." 

If  the  man  knows  what  he  is  talking  about, 
he  can  mean  but  one  thing. 

The  motives  that  led  Leopold  to  grant  these 
concessions  are  possibly  various.  The  mo- 
tives that  induced  the  Americans  to  take  his 
offer  were  probably  less  complicated.  With 
them  it  was  no  question  of  politics.  They 
wanted  the  money;  they  did  not  need  it,  for 
they  all  are  rich — they  merely  wanted  it.  But 
Leopold  wants  more  than  the  half  profits  he 
will  obtain  from  the  Americans.  If  the  Pow- 
ers should  wake  from  their  apathy  and  try  to 
cast  him  out  of  the  Congo,  he  wants,  through 
his  American  partners,  the  help  of  the  United 
States.  Should  he  be  "dethroned,"  by  grant- 
ing these  concessions  now  on  a  share  and 
share  alike  basis  with  Belgians,  French,  and 
Americans,  he  still,  through  them,  hopes  to 
draw  from  the  Congo  a  fair  income.  And  in 
the  meanwhile  he  looks  to  these  Americans 
to  kill  any  action  against  him  that  may  be 
taken  in  our  Senate  and  House  of  Representa- 
tives, even  in  the  White  House  and  Depart- 
ment of  State. 

107 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

For  the  last  two  years  Chester  A.  Beatty  has 
been  visiting  Leopold  at  Belgium,  and  has  ob- 
tained the  two  concessions,  and  Leopold  has 
obtained,  or  hopes  he  has  obtained,  the  in- 
fluence of  many  American  shareholders.  The 
fact  that  the  people  of  the  United  States  pos- 
sessed no  "vested  interest"  in  the  Congo  was 
the  important  fact  that  placed  any  action  on 
our  part  in  behalf  of  that  distressed  country 
above  suspicion.  If  we  acted,  we  did  so  be- 
cause the  United  States,  as  one  of  the  signatory 
Powers  of  the  Berlin  Act,  had  promised  to 
protect  the  natives  of  the  Congo;  and  we 
could  truly  claim  that  we  acted  only  in  the 
name  of  humanity.  Leopold  has  now  robbed 
us  of  that  claim.  He  hopes  that  the  enormous 
power  wielded  by  the  Americans  with  whom 
he  is  associated,  will  prevent  any  action 
against  him  in  this  country. 

But  the  deal  has  already  been  made  public, 
and  the  motives  of  those  who  now  oppose  im- 
provement of  conditions  in  the  Congo,  and 
who  support  Leopold,  will  be  at  once  sus- 
pected. 

To  me  the  most  interesting  thing  about  the 
tract  of  land  ceded  to  Mr.  Ryan,  apart  from 

loS 


AMERICANS  IN  THE  CONGO 

the  number  of  hippopotamuses  I  saw  on  it, 
was  that  the  people  living  along  the  Congo 
say  that  it  is  of  no  value.  They  told  me  that 
two  years  ago,  after  working  it  for  some  time, 
Leopold  abandoned  it  as  unprofitable,  and 
they  added  that,  when  Leopold  cannot  whip 
rubber  out  of  the  forest,  it  is  hard  to  believe 
that  it  can  be  obtained  there  legitimately  by 
any  one  else.  On  the  bank  I  saw  the  "fac- 
tories" to  which  the  unprofitable  rubber  had 
been  carried  from  the  interior.  They  had 
formerly  belonged  to  Leopold,  now  they  are 
the  property  of  Mr.  Ryan  and  of  the  Amer- 
ican Congo  Company.  In  only  two  years 
they  already  are  in  ruins,  and  the  jungle  has 
engulfed  them. 

I  was  on  the  land  owned  by  the  company  a 
dozen  times  or  more,  but  I  did  not  go  into  the 
interior.  Even  had  I  done  so,  I  am  not  an 
expert  on  rubber,  and  would  have  understood 
nothing  of  Para  trees,  Lagos  silk,  and  liane. 
I  am  speaking  not  of  my  own  knowledge, 
only  of  what  was  told  me  by  people  who  live 
on  the  spot.  I  found  that  this  particular  con- 
cession was  well  known,  because,  unlike  the 

land  given  to  the  Forestry  and  Mines  Com- 

109 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

pany,  it  is  not  an  inaccessible  tract,  but  is 
situated  only  eight  miles  from  Leopoldville. 
In  our  language,  that  is  about  as  far  as  is  the 
Battery  to  i6oth  Street.  Leopoldville  is  the 
chief  place  on  the  Congo  River,  and  every  one 
there  who  spoke  to  me  of  the  concession  knew 
where  it  was  situated,  and  repeated  that  it  had 
been  given  up  by  Leopold  as  unprofitable,  and 
that  he  had  unloaded  it  on  Mr.  Ryan.  They 
seem  to  think  it  very  clever  of  the  King  to  have 
got  rid  of  it  to  the  American  millionaire.  To 
one  knowing  Mr.  Ryan  only  from  what  he  reads 
of  him  in  the  public  press,  he  does  not  seem 
to  be  the  sort  of  man  to  whom  Leopold  could 
sell  a  worthless  rubber  plantation.  However, 
it  is  a  matter  which  concerns  only  Mr.  Ryan 
and  those  who  may  think  of  purchasing  shares 
in  the  company.  The  Guggenheims,  who  are 
to  operate  this  rubber,  say  that  Leopold  did 
not  know  how  to  get  out  the  full  value  of  the 
land,  and  that  they,  by  using  the  machinery 
they  will  install,  will  be  able  to  make  a  profit, 
where  Leopold,  using  only  native  labor,  suf- 
fered a  loss. 

To  the  poor  the  ways  of  the  truly  rich  are 
past  finding  out.    After  a  man  has  attained  a 


AMERICANS  IN  THE  CONGO 

fortune  sufficient  to  keep  him  in  yachts  and 
automobiles,  one  would  think  he  could  afford 
to  indulge  himself  in  the  luxury  of  being 
squeamish;  that  as  to  where  he  obtained  any 
further  increase  of  wealth,  he  would  prefer  to 
pick  and  choose. 

On  the  contrary,  these  Americans  go  as  far 
out  of  their  way  as  Belgium  to  make  a  partner 
of  the  man  who  has  wrung  his  money  from 
wretched  slaves,  who  were  beaten,  starved, 
and  driven  in  chains.  This  concession  can- 
not make  them  rich.  It  can  only  make  them 
richer.  And  not  richer  in  fact,  for  all  the 
money  they  may  whip  out  of  the  Congo  could 
not  give  them  one  thing  that  they  cannot  now 
command,  not  an  extra  taste  to  the  lips,  not 
a  fresh  sensation,  not  one  added  power  for 
good.  To  them  it  can  mean  only  a  figure  in 
ink  on  a  page  of  a  bank-book.  But  what  suf- 
fering, what  misery  it  may  mean  to  the  slaves 
who  put  it  there!  Why  should  men  as  rich 
as  these  elect  to  go  into  partnership  with  one 
who  sweats  his  dollars  out  of  the  naked  black  ? 
How  really  fine,  how  really  wonderful  it  would 
be  if  these  same  men,  working  together,  de- 
cided to  set  free  these  twenty  million  people — 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

if,  instead  of  joining  hands  with  Leopold, 
they  would  overthrow  him  and  march  into  the 
Congo  free  men,  without  his  chain  around 
their  ankles,  and  open  it  to  the  trade  of  the 
world,  and  give  justice  and  a  right  to  live  and 
to  work  and  to  sell  and  buy  to  millions  of 
miserable  human  beings.  These  Americans 
working  together  could  do  it.  They  could  do 
it  from  Washington.  Or  five  hundred  men 
with  two  Maxim  guns  could  do  it.  The 
"kingdom"  of  the  Congo  is  only  a  house  of 
cards.  Five  hundred  filibusters  could  take 
Boma,  proclaim  the  Congo  open  to  the  traders 
of  the  world,  as  the  Act  of  Berlin  declares  it 
to  be,  and  in  a  day  make  of  Leopold  the  jest 
of  Europe.  They  would  only  be  taking 
possession  of  what  has  always  belonged  to 
them. 

Down  in  the  Congo  I  talked  to  many  young 
officers  of  Leopold's  army.  They  had  been 
driven  to  serve  him  by  the  whips  of  failure, 
poverty,  or  crime.  I  do  not  know  that  the 
American  concessionaires  are  driven  by  any 
such  scourge.  These  younger  men,  who  saw 
the  depths  of  their  degradation,  who  tasted  the 
dirty  work  they  were  doing,  were  daily  risking 


AMERICANS  IN  THE  CONGO 

life  by  fever,  through  lack  of  food,  by  poisoned 
arrows,  and  for  three  hundred  dollars  a  year. 
Their  necessity  was  great.  They  had  the  cour- 
age of  their  failure.  They  were  men  one  could 
pity.  One  of  them  picked  at  the  band  of  blue 
and  gold  braid  around  the  wrist  of  his  tunic, 
and  said:   "Look,  it  is  our  badge  of  shame." 

To  me  those  foreign  soldiers  of  fortune, 
who,  sooner  than  starve  at  home  or  go  to 
jail,  serve  Leopold  in  the  jungle,  seem  more 
like  men  and  brothers  than  these  truly  rich, 
who,  of  their  own  free  will,  safe  in  their  down- 
town offices,  become  partners  with  this  black- 
guard King. 

What  will  be  the  outcome  of  the  American 
advance  into  the  Congo.?  Will  it  prove  the 
salvation  of  the  Congo?  Will  it  be,  if  that 
were  possible,  a  greater  evil  ? 

E.  R.  Morel,  who  is  the  leader  in  England 
of  the  movement  for  the  improvement  of  the 
Congo,  has  written:  "It  is  a  little  difficult  to 
imagine  that  the  trust  magnates  are  moulded 
upon  the  unique  model  of  Leopold  II,  and  are 
prepared  for  the  asking  to  become  associates 
in  slave-driving.  The  trouble  is  that  they 
probably  know  nothing  about  African  condi- 

"3 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

tions,  that  they  have  been  primed  by  the  King 
with  his  detestable  theories,  and  are  starting 
their  enterprises  on  the  basis  that  the  natives 
of  Central  Africa  must  be  regarded  as  mere 
'laborers'  for  the  white  man's  benefit,  pos- 
sessing no  rights  in  land  nor  in  the  produce 
of  the  soil.  If  Mr.  Ryan  and  his  colleagues 
are  going  to  acquire  their  rubber  over  four 
thousand  square  miles,  by  *  commercial  meth- 
ods,' we  welcome  their  advent.  But  we  would 
point  out  to  them  that,  in  such  a  case,  they 
had  better  at  once  abandon  all  idea  of  three  or 
four  hundred  per  cent  dividends  with  which 
the  wily  autocrat  at  Brussels  has  doubtless 
primed  them.  No  such  monstrous  profits  are 
to  be  acquired  in  tropical  Africa  under  a  trade 
system.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  methods 
they  are  prepared  to  adopt  are  the  methods 
King  Leopold  and  his  other  concessionaires 
have  adopted  for  the  past  thirteen  years,  dev- 
astation and  destruction,  and  the  raising  of 
more  large  bodies  of  soldiers,  are  their  essen- 
tial accompaniments ;  and  the  widening  of  the 
area  of  the  Congo  hell  is  assured." 

The  two  things  in  the  American  invasion 
of  the  Congo  that  promise  good  to  that  un- 

"4 


AMERICANS  IN  THE  CONGO 

happy  country  are  that  our  country  is  repre- 
sented at  Boma  by  a  most  intelligent,  honest, 
and  fearless  young  man  in  the  person  of  James 
A.  Smith,  our  Consul-General,  and  that  the 
actual  work  of  operating  the  mines  and  rubber 
is  in  the  hands  of  the  Guggenheims.  They 
are  well  known  as  men  upright  in  affairs,  and 
as  philanthropists  and  humanitarians  of  the 
common-sense  type.  Like  other  rich  men  of 
their  race,  they  have  given  largely  to  charity 
and  to  assist  those  less  fortunate  than  them- 
selves. 

For  thirteen  years  in  mines  in  Mexico,  in 
China,  and  Alaska,  they  have  had  to  deal 
with  the  problem  of  labor,  and  they  have  met 
it  successfully.  Workmen  of  three  nationali- 
ties they  have  treated  with  fairness. 

"Why  should  you  suppose,"  Mr.  Daniel 
Guggenheim  asked  me,  "that  in  the  Congo  we 
will  treat  the  negroes  harshly  ?  In  Mexico  we 
found  the  natives  ill-paid  and  ill-fed.  We  fed 
them  and  paid  them  well.  Not  from  any 
humanitarian  idea,  but  because  it  was  good 
business.  It  is  not  good  business  to  cut  off  a 
workman's  hands  or  head.  We  are  not 
ashamed  of  the  way  we  have  always  treated 

"S 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

our  workmen,  and  in  the  Congo  we  are  not 
going  to  spoil  our  record/* 

I  suggested  that  in  Mexico  he  did  not  have 
as  his  partner  Leopold,  tempting  him  with 
slave  labor,  and  that  the  distance  from  Broad- 
way to  his  concessions  in  the  Congo  was  so 
great  that  as  to  what  his  agents  might  do  there 
he  could  not  possibly  know.  To  this  Mr. 
Guggenheim  answered  that  "Neither  Leopold 
nor  anyone  else  can  dictate  how  we  shall 
treat  the  native  labor,"  that  if  his  agents  were 
cruel  they  would  be  instantly  dismissed,  and 
that  for  what  occurred  in  the  Congo  on  the 
land  occupied  by  the  American  Congo  Com- 
pany his  brothers  and  himself  alone  were  re- 
sponsible, and  that  they  accepted  that  re- 
sponsibility. 

But  already  on  his  salary  list  he  has  men 
who  are  sure  to  get  him  into  trouble,  men  of 
whose  dossiers  he  is  quite  ignorant. 

From  Belgium,  Leopold  has  unloaded  on 
the  American  companies  several  of  his 
"valets  du  roi,"  press  agents,  and  tools, 
men  who  for  years  have  been  defenders  of 
his  dirty  work  in  the  Congo;  and  of  the 
Americans,    one,    who     is    prominently    ex- 

ii6 


AMERICANS  IN  THE  CONGO 

ploited  by  the  Belgians,  had  to  leave  Africa 
for  theft. 

That  Mr.  Guggenheim  wishes  and  intends 
to  give  to  the  black  in  the  Congo  fair  treatment 
there  is  no  possible  doubt.  But  that  on  Broad- 
way, removed  from  the  scene  of  operations  in 
time  some  four  to  six  months,  and  in  actual 
distance  eight  thousand  miles,  he  can  control 
the  acts  of  his  agents  and  his  partners,  remains 
to  be  proved.  He  is  attacking  a  problem  much 
more  momentous  than  the  handling  of  Mexican 
peons  or  Chinese  coolies,  and  every  step  of  the 
working  out  of  this  problem  will  be  watched 
by  the  people  of  this  country. 

And  should  they  find  that  the  example  of  the 
Belgian  concessionaires  in  their  treatment  of 
the  natives  is  being  imitated  by  even  one  of 
the  American  Congo  Company  the  people  of 
this  country  will  know  it,  and  may  the  Lord 
have  mercy  on  his  soul! 


X17 


HUNTING   THE    HIPPO 

EXCEPT  once  or  twice  in  the  Zoo,  I  never 
had  seen  a  hippopotamus,  and  I  was  most 
anxious,  before  I  left  the  Congo,  to  meet  one. 
I  wanted  to  look  at  him  when  he  was  free,  and 
his  own  master,  without  iron  bars  or  keepers; 
when  he  believed  he  was  quite  alone,  and  was 
enjoying  his  bath  in  peace  and  confidence.  I 
also  wanted  to  shoot  him,  and  to  hang  in  my 
ancestral  halls  his  enormous  head  with  the 
great  jaws  open  and  the  inside  of  them  painted 
pink  and  the  small  tusks  hungrily  protruding. 
I  had  this  desire,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  for 
every  hippo  except  the  particular  one  whose 
head  I  coveted,  I  entertained  the  utmost  good 
feeling. 

As  a  lad,  among  other  beasts  the  hippopota- 
mus had  appealed  to  my  imagination.  Col- 
lectively, I  had  always  looked  upon  them  as 

ii8 


HUNTING  THE  HIPPO 

most  charming  people.     They  come  of  an 

ancient  family.     Two  thousand  four  hundred 

years  ago  they  were  mentioned  by  Herodotus. 

And  Herodotus  to  the  animal  kingdom  is  what 

Domesday  Book  is  to  the  landed  gentry.    To 

exist  beautifully  for  twenty-four  hundred  years 

without  a  single  mesalliance,  without  having 

once  stooped  to  trade,  is  certainly  a  strong  title 

to  nobility.     Other  animals  by  contact  with 

man  have  become  degraded.  The  lion,  the 

"King  of  Beasts,"  now  rides  a  bicycle,  and 

growls,  as  previously  rehearsed,  at  the  young 

woman  in  spangles,  of  whom  he  is  secretly 

afraid.     And  the  elephant,  the  monarch  of  the 

jungle,  and  of  a  family  as  ancient  and  noble 

as  that  of  the  hippopotamus,  the  monarch  of 

the  river,  has  become  a  beast  of  burden  and 

works  for  his  living.     You   can  see   him  in 

Phoenix  Park  dragging  a  road-roller,  in  Siam 

and  India  carrying  logs,  and  at  Coney  Island 

he  bends  the  knee  to  little  girls  from  Brooklyn. 

The  royal  proboscis,  that  once  uprooted  trees, 

now  begs  for  peanuts. 

But,  you  never  see  a  hippopotamus  chained 

to  a  road-roller,  or  riding  a  bicycle.     He  is 

still  the  gentleman,  the  man  of  elegant  leis- 

119 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

ure,  the  aristocrat  of  aristocrats,  harming  no 
one,  and,  in  his  ancestral  river,  living  the 
simple  life. 

And  yet,  I  sought  to  kill  him.  At  least,  one 
of  him,  but  only  one.  And,  that  I  did  not  kill 
even  one,  while  a  bitter  disappointment,  is 
still  a  source  of  satisfaction. 

In  the  Congo  River  we  saw  only  two  hippos, 
and  both  of  them  were  dead.  They  had  been 
shot  from  a  steamer.  If  the  hippo  is  killed  in 
the  water,  it  is  impossible  to  recover  the  body 
at  once.  It  sinks  and  does  not  rise,  some 
say,  for  an  hour,  others  say  for  seven  hours. 
As  in  an  hour  the  current  may  have  carried 
the  body  four  miles  below  where  it  sank,  the 
steamer  does  not  wait,  and  the  destruction  of 
the  big  beast  is  simple  murder.  There  should 
be  a  law  in  the  Congo  to  prevent  their  destruc- 
tion, and,  no  doubt,  if  the  State  thought  it 
could  make  a  few  francs  out  of  protecting  the 
hippo,  as  it  makes  many  million  francs  by  pre- 
serving the  elephant,  which  it  does  for  the 
ivory,  such  a  law  would  exist.  We  soon  saw 
many  hippos,  but  although  we  could  not  per- 
suade the  only  other  passenger  not  to  fire  at 
them,  there  are  a  few  hippos  still  alive  in  the 


HUNTING  THE  HIPPO 

Congo.  For,  the  only  time  the  Captain  and  I 
were  positive  he  hit  anything,  was  when  he 
fired  over  our  heads  and  blew  off  the  roof  of 
the  bridge. 

When  first  we  saw  the  two  dead  hippos,  one 
of  them  was  turning  and  twisting  so  violently 
that  we  thought  he  was  alive.  But,  as  we  drew 
near,  we  saw  the  strange  convulsions  were  due 
to  two  enormous  and  ugly  crocodiles,  who  were 
fiercely  pulling  at  the  body.  Crocodiles  being 
man-eaters,  we  had  no  feelings  about  shooting 
them,  either  in  the  water  or  up  a  tree;  and  I 
hope  we  hit  them.  In  any  event,  after  we 
fired  the  body  drifted  on  in  peace. 

On  my  return  trip,  going  with  the  stream, 
when  the  boat  covers  about  four  times  the 
distance  she  makes  when  steaming  against 
it,  I  saw  many  hippos.  In  one  day  I  counted 
sixty-nine.  But  on  our  way  up  the  Congo, 
until  we  turned  into  the  Kasai  River,  we  saw 
none. 

So,  on  the  first  night  we  camped  in  the  Kasai 
I  had  begun  to  think  I  never  would  see  one, 
and  I  went  ashore  both  skeptical  and  discour- 
aged. We  had  stopped,  not  at  a  wood  post, 
but  at  a  place  on  the  river's  bank  previously 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

untouched  by  man,  where  there  was  a  stretch  of 
beach,  and  then  a  higher  level  with  trees  and 
tall  grasses.  Driven  deep  in  this  beach  were 
the  footprints  of  a  large  elephant.  They 
looked  as  though  some  one  had  amused  himself 
by  sinking  a  bucket  in  the  mud,  and  then  pull- 
ing it  out.  For  sixty  yards  I  followed  the 
holes  and  finally  lost  them  in  a  confusion  of 
other  tracks.  The  place  had  been  so  trampled 
upon  that  it  was  beaten  into  a  basin.  It  looked 
as  though  every  animal  in  the  Kasai  had  met 
there  to  hold  a  dance.  There  were  the  deep 
imprints  of  the  hippos  and  the  round  foot  of 
the  elephant,  with  the  marks  of  the  big  toes 
showing  as  clearly  as  though  they  had  been 
scooped  out  of  the  mud  with  a  trowel,  the  hoofs 
of  buffalo  as  large  as  the  shoe  of  a  cart  horse, 
and  the  arrow-like  marks  of  the  antelope,  some 
in  dainty  little  Vs,  others  measuring  three 
inches  across,  and  three  inches  from  the  base 
to  the  point.  They  came  from  every  direction, 
down  the  bank  and  out  of  the  river;  and 
crossed  and  recrossed,  and  beneath  the  fresh 
prints  that  had  been  made  that  morning  at 
sunrise,  were  those  of  days  before  rising  up 
sharply  out  of  the  sun-dried  clay,  like  bas- 


HUNTING  THE  HIPPO 

reliefs  in  stucco.   I  had  gone  ashore  in  a  state 

of  mind  so  skeptical  that  I  was  as  surprised  as 

Crusoe  at  the  sight  of  footprints.     It  was  as 

though  the  boy  who  did  not  believe  in  fairies 

suddenly  stumbled  upon  them  sliding  down  the 

moonbeams.     One   felt  distinctly   apologetic 

— as  though  uninvited  he  had  pushed  himself 

into  a  family  gathering.     At  the  same  time 

there  was  the  excitement  of  meeting  in  their 

own  homes  the  strange  peoples  I  had  seen  only 

in  the  springtime,  when  the  circus  comes  to 

New  York,  in  the  basement  of  Madison  Square 

Garden,  where  they  are  our  pitiful  prisoners, 

bruising  their  shoulders  against  bars.     Here 

they  were  monarchs  of  all  they  surveyed.     I 

was  the  intruder;   and,  looking  down  at  the 

marks  of  the  great  paws  and  delicate  hoofs,  I 

felt  as  much  out  of  place  as  would  a  grizzly  bear 

in  a  Fifth  Avenue  club.    And  I  behaved  much 

as  would  the  grizzly  bear.     I  rushed  back  for 

my  rifle  intent  on  killing  something. 

The  sun  had  just  set;  the  moon  was  shining 

faintly:    it  was  the  moment  the  beasts  of  the 

jungle  came  to  the  river  to  drink.     Anfossi, 

although  he  had  spent  three  years  in  the  Congo 

and  had  three  years'  contract  still  to  work  out, 

123 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

was  as  determined  to  kill  something  as  was  the 

tenderfoot  from  New  York. 

Sixty  yards  from  the  stern  of  the  Deliverance 

was  the  basin  I  had  discovered;  at  an  equal 

distance  from  her  bow,  a  stream  plunged  into 

the  river.    Anfossi  argued  the  hippos  would 

prefer  to  drink  the  clear  water  of  the  stream,  to 

the  muddy  water  of  the  basin,  and  elected  to 

watch  at  the  stream.    I  carried  a  deck  chair  to 

the  edge  of  my  basin  and  placed  it  in  the 

shadow  of  the  trees.     Anfossi  went  into  our 

cabin  for  his  rifle.    At  that  exact  moment  a 

hippopotamus   climbed   leisurely   out   of  the 

river  and  plunged  into  the  stream.     One  of 

the  soldiers  on  shore  saw  him  and  rushed  for 

the  boat.     Anfossi  sent  my  boy  on  the  jump 

for  me  and,  like  a  gentleman,  waited  until  I 

had  raced   the    sixty   yards.      But  when  we 

reached  the  stream  there  was  nothing  visible 

but  the  trampled  grass  and  great  holes  in  the 

mud  and  near  us  in  the  misty  moonlight  river 

something  that  puff^ed  and  blew  slowly  and 

luxuriously,  as  would  any  fat  gentleman  who 

had  been  forced  to  run  for  it.     Had  I  followed 

Anfossi's  judgment  and  gone  along  the  bank 

sixty  yards  ahead,  instead  of  sixty  yards  astern 

124 


HUNTING  THE  HIPPO 

of  the  Deliverance,  at  the  exact  moment  at 
which  I  sank  into  my  deck  chair,  the  hippo 
would  have  emerged  at  my  feet.  It  is  even 
betting  as  to  which  of  us  would  have  been  the 
more  scared. 

The  next  day,  and  for  days  after,  we  saw 
nothing  but  hippos.  We  saw  them  floating 
singly  and  in  family  groups,  with  generally 
four  or  five  cows  to  one  bull,  and  sometimes  in 
front  a  baby  hippo  no  larger  than  a  calf,  which 
the  mother  with  her  great  bulk  would  push 
against  the  swift  current,  as  you  see  a  tugboat 
in  the  lee  of  a  great  liner.  Once,  what  I 
thought  was  a  spit  of  rocks  suddenly  tumbled 
apart  and  became  twenty  hippos,  piled  more 
or  less  on  top  of  each  other.  During  that  one 
day,  as  they  floated  with  the  current,  enjoying 
their  afternoon's  nap,  we  saw  thirty-four. 
They  impressed  me  as  the  most  idle,  and,  there- 
fore, the  most  aristocratic  of  animals.  They 
toil  not,  neither  do  they  spin;  they  had  nothing 
to  do  but  float  in  the  warm  water  and  the 
bright  sunshine;  their  only  effort  was  to  open 
their  enormous  jaws  and  yawn  luxuriously,  in 
the  pure  content  of  living,  in  absolute  boredom. 
They  reminded  you  only  of  fat  gouty  old 

"5 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

gentlemen,  puffing  and  blowing  in  the  pool  at 
the  Warm  Springs. 

The  next  chance  we  had  at  one  of  them  on 
shore  came  on  our  first  evening  in  the  Kasai 
just  before  sunset.  Captain  Jensen  was  steer- 
ing for  a  flat  island  of  sand  and  grass  where  he 
meant  to  tie  up  for  the  night.  About  fifty  yards 
from  the  spot  for  which  we  were  making,  was 
the  only  tree  on  the  island,  and  under  it  with 
his  back  to  us,  and  leisurely  eating  the  leaves 
of  the  lower  branches,  exactly  as  though  he 
were  waiting  for  us  by  appointment,  was  a  big 
gray  hippo.  His  back  being  toward  us,  we 
could  not  aim  at  his  head,  and  he  could  not  see 
us.  But  the  Deliverance  is  not  noiseless,  and, 
hearing  the  paddle-wheel,  the  hippo  turned, 
saw  us,  and  bolted  for  the  river.  The  hippo- 
potamus is  as  much  at  home  in  the  water  as 
the  seal.  To  get  to  the  water,  if  he  is  sur- 
prised out  of  it,  and  to  get  under  it,  if  he  is 
alarmed  while  in  it,  is  instinct.  If  he  does 
venture  ashore,  he  goes  only  a  few  rods  from 
the  bank  and  then  only  to  forage.  His  home 
is  the  river,  and  he  rushes  to  bury  himself  in 
it  as  naturally  as  the  squirrel  makes  for  a  tree. 

This  particular  hippo  ran  for  the  river  as  fast 

136 


HUNTING  THE  HIPPO 

as  a  horse  coming  at  a  slow  trot.  He  was  a 
very  badly  scared  hippo.  His  head  was  high 
in  the  air,  his  fat  sides  were  shaking,  and  the 
one  little  eye  turned  toward  us  was  filled  with 
concern.  Behind  him  the  yellow  sun  was 
setting  into  the  lagoons.  On  the  flat  stretch  of 
sand  he  was  the  only  object,  and  against  the 
horizon  loomed  as  large  as  a  freight  car. 
That  must  be  why  we  both  missed  him.  I 
tried  to  explain  that  the  reason  I  missed  him 
was  that,  never  before  having  seen  so  large  an 
animal  running  for  his  life,  I  could  not  watch 
him  do  it  and  look  at  the  gun  sights.  No  one 
believed  that  was  why  I  missed  him.  I  did  not 
believe  it  myself.  In  any  event  neither  of  us 
hit  his  head,  and  he  plunged  down  the  bank  to 
freedom,  carying  most  of  the  bank  with  him. 
But,  while  we  still  were  violently  blaming  each 
other,  at  about  two  hundred  yards  below  the 
boat,  he  again  waddled  out  of  the  river  and 
waded  knee  deep  up  the  little  stream.  Keep- 
ing the  bunches  of  grass  between  us,  I  ran  up 
the  beach,  aimed  at  his  eye  and  this  time  hit 
him  fairly  enough.  With  a  snort  he  rose  high 
in  the  air,  and  so,  for  an  instant,  balanced  his 

enormous  bulk.    The  action  was  like  that  of 

127 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

a  horse  that  rears  on  his  hind  legs,  when  he  is 
whipped  over  the  nose.  And  apparently  my 
bullet  hurt  him  no  more  than  the  whip  the 
horse,  for  he  dropped  heavily  to  all  fours,  and 
again  disappeared  into  the  muddy  river.  Our 
disappointment  and  chagrin  were  intense,  and 
at  once  Anfossi  and  I  organized  a  hunt  for 
that  evening.  To  encourage  us,  while  we  were 
sitting  on  the  bridge  making  a  hasty  dinner, 
another  hippopotamus  had  the  impertinence 
to  rise,  blowing  like  a  whale,  not  ten  feet  from 
where  we  sat.  We  could  have  thrown  our  tin 
cups  and  hit  him;  but  he  was  in  the  water,  and 
now  we  were  seeking  only  those  on  land. 

Two  years  ago  when  the  atrocities  along  the 
Kasai  made  the  natives  fear  the  white  man  and 
the  white  man  fear  the  natives,  each  of  the 
river  boats  was  furnished  with  a  stand  of  Albini 
rifles.  Three  of  the  black  soldiers,  who  were 
keen  sportsmen,  were  served  with  these  mus- 
kets, and  as  soon  as  the  moon  rose,  the  soldiers 
and  Anfossi,  my  black  boy,  with  an  extra  gun, 
and  I  set  forth  to  clear  the  island  of  hippos. 
To  the  stranger  it  was  a  most  curious  hunt. 
The  island  was  perfectly  flat  and  bare,  and  the 

river  had  eaten  into  it  and  overflowed  it  with 

128 


u'  *if      'J 


•r^ 


Mr.  Davis  and  Native  '"Boy,"  on  the  Kasai  River. 


HUNTING  THE  HIPPO 

tiny  rivulets  and  deep,  swift-running  streams. 
Into  these  rivulets  and  streams  the  soldiers 
plunged,  one  in  front,  feeling  the  depth  of  the 
water  with  a  sounding  rod,  and  as  he  led  we 
followed.  The  black  men  made  a  splendid 
picture.  They  were  naked  but  for  breech- 
cloths,  and  the  moonlight  flashed  on  their  wet 
skins  and  upon  the  polished  barrels  of  the 
muskets.  But,  as  a  sporting  proposition,  as  far 
as  I  could  see,  we  had  taken  on  the  hippopota- 
mus at  his  own  game.  We  were  supposed  to 
be  on  an  island,  but  the  water  was  up  to  our 
belts  and  running  at  five  miles  an  hour.  I 
could  not  understand  why  we  had  not  openly 
and  aboveboard  walked  into  the  river.  Wad- 
ing waist  high  in  the  water  with  a  salmon  rod 
I  could  understand,  but  not  swimming  around 
in  a  river  with  a  gun.  The  force  of  the  shal- 
lowest stream  was  the  force  of  the  great  river 
behind  it,  and  wherever  you  put  your  foot, 
the  current,  on  its  race  to  the  sea,  annoyed  at 
the  impediment,  washed  the  sand  from  under 
the  sole  of  your  foot  and  tugged  at  your  knees 
and  ankles.  To  add  to  the  interest  the  three 
soldiers  held  their  muskets  at  full  cock,  and  as 

they  staggered  for  a  footing  each  pointed  his 

129 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

gun  at  me.  There  also  was  a  strange  fish 
about  the  size  of  an  EngHsh  sole  that  sprang 
out  of  the  water  and  hurled  himself  through 
space.  Each  had  a  white  belly,  and  as  they 
skimmed  past  us  in  the  moonlight  it  was  as 
though  some  one  was  throwing  dinner  plates. 
After  we  had  swum  the  length  of  the  English 
Channel,  we  returned  to  the  boat.  As  to  that 
midnight  hunt  I  am  still  uncertain  as  to 
whether  we  were  hunting  the  hippos  or  the 
hippos  were  hunting  us. 

The  next  morning  we  had  our  third  and  last 
chance  at  a  hippo. 

It  is  distinctly  a  hard-luck  story.  We  had 
just  gone  on  the  bridge  for  breakfast  when  we 
saw  him  walking  slowly  from  us  along  an  island 
of  white  sand  as  flat  as  your  hand,  and  on 
which  he  loomed  large  as  a  haystack.  Captain 
Jensen  was  a  true  sportsman.  He  jerked  the 
bell  to  the  engine-room,  and  at  full  speed  the 
Deliverance  raced  for  the  shore.  The  hippo 
heard  us,  and,  like  a  baseball  player  caught  off 
base,  tried  to  get  back  to  the  river.  Captain 
Jensen  danced  on  the  deck  plates: 

"Schoot  it!   schoot  it!"  he  yelled,  "Gotfur- 

damn!  schoot  it!"    When  Anfossi  and  I  fired, 

130 


HUNTING  THE  HIPPO 

the  Deliverance  was  a  hundred  yards  from  the 
hippo,  and  the  hippo  was  not  five  feet  from  the 
bank.  In  another  instant,  he  would  have  been 
over  it  and  safe.  But  when  we  fired,  he  went 
down  as  suddenly  as  though  a  safe  had  dropped 
on  him.  Except  that  he  raised  his  head,  and 
rolled  it  from  side  to  side,  he  remained  per- 
fectly still.  From  his  actions,  or  lack  of 
actions,  it  looked  as  though  one  of  the  bullets 
had  broken  his  back;  and  when  the  blacks 
saw  he  could  not  move  they  leaped  and  danced 
and  shrieked.  To  them  the  death  of  the  big 
beast  promised  much  chop. 

But  Captain  Jensen  was  not  so  confident. 
"Schoot  it,'*  he  continued  to  shout,  "we  lose 
him  yet!  Gotfurdamn!  schoot  it!" 

My  gun  was  an  American  magazine  rifle, 
holding  five  cartridges.  We  now  were  very 
near  the  hippo,  and  I  shot  him  in  the  head 
twice,  and,  once,  when  he  opened  them,  in  the 
jaws.  At  each  shot  his  head  would  jerk  with 
a  quick  toss  of  pain,  and  at  the  sight  the  blacks 
screamed  with  delight  that  was  primitively 
savage.  After  the  last  shot,  when  Captain 
Jensen  had  brought  the  Deliverance  broadside 

to  the  bank,  the  hippo  ceased  to  move.     The 

131 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

boat  had  not  reached  the  shore  before  the  boys 
with  the  steel  hawser  were  in  the  water;  the 
gangplank  was  run  out,  and  the  black  soldiers 
and  wood  boys,  with  their  knives,  were  dancing 
about  the  hippo  and  hacking  at  his  tail.  Their 
idea  was  to  make  him  the  more  quickly  bleed 
to  death.  I  ran  to  the  cabin  for  more  car- 
tridges. It  seemed  an  absurd  precaution.  I 
was  as  sure  I  had  the  head  of  that  hippo  as  I 
was  sure  that  my  own  was  still  on  my  neck. 
My  only  difficulty  was  whether  to  hang  the 
head  in  the  front  hall  or  in  the  dining-room. 
It  might  be  rather  too  large  for  the  dining- 
room.  That  was  all  that  troubled  me.  After 
three  minutes,  when  I  was  back  on  deck,  the 
hippo  still  lay  immovable.  Certainly  twenty 
men  were  standing  about  him;  three  were 
sawing  oflF  his  tail,  and  the  women  were  chant- 
ing triumphantly  a  song  they  used  to  sing  in 
the  days  when  the  men  were  allowed  to  hunt, 
and  had  returned  successful  with  food. 

On  the  bridge  was  Anfossi  with  his  camera. 
Before  the  men  had  surrounded  the  hippo  he 
had  had  time  to  snap  one  picture  of  it.  I  had 
just  started  after  my  camera,  when  from  the 

blacks  there  was  a  yell  of  alarm,  of  rage,  and 

13a 


HUNTING  THE  HIPPO 

amazement.  The  hippo  had  opened  his  eyes 
and  raised  his  head.  I  shoved  the  boys  out  of 
the  way,  and,  putting  the  gun  close  to  his  head, 
fired  pointblank.  I  wanted  to  put  him  out 
of  pain.  I  need  not  have  distressed  myself. 
The  bullet  affected  him  no  more  than  a  quinine 
pill.  What  seemed  chiefly  to  concern  him, 
what  apparently  had  brought  him  back  to  life, 
was  the  hacking  at  his  tail.  That  was  an  in- 
dignity he  could  not  brook. 

His  expression,  and  he  had  a  perfectly 
human  expression,  was  one  of  extreme  annoy- 
ance and  of  some  slight  alarm,  as  though  he 
were  muttering:  "This  is  no  place  for  me" 
and,  without  more  ado,  he  began  to  roll  toward 
the  river.  Without  killing  some  one,  I  could 
not  again  use  the  rifle.  The  boys  were  close 
upon  him,  prying  him  back  with  the  gangplank, 
beating  him  with  sticks  of  firewood,  trying  to 
rope  him  with  the  steel  hawser.  On  the  bridge 
Captain  Jensen  and  Anfossi  were  giving  orders 
in  Danish  and  Italian,  and  on  the  bank  I 
swore  in  American.  Everybody  shoved  and 
pushed  and  beat  at  the  great  bulk,  and  the 
great  bulk  rolled  steadily  on.  We  might  as 
well  have  tried  to  budge  the  Fifth  Avenue 

133 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

Hotel.  He  reached  the  bank,  he  crushed  it 
beneath  him,  and,  Hke  a  suspension  bridge, 
splashed  into  the  water.  Even  then,  we  who 
watched  him  thought  he  would  stick  fast  be- 
tween the  boat  and  the  bank,  that  the  hawser 
would  hold  him.  But  he  sank  like  a  sub- 
marine, and  we  stood  gaping  at  the  muddy 
water  and  saw  him  no  more.  When  I  re- 
covered from  my  first  rage  I  was  glad  he  was 
still  alive  to  float  in  the  sun  and  puff  and  blow 
and  open  his  great  jaws  in  a  luxurious  yawn. 
I  could  imagine  his  joining  his  friends  after  his 
meeting  with  us,  and  remarking  in  reference 
to  our  bullets :  "  I  find  the  mosquitoes  are  quite 
bad  this  morning." 

With  this  chapter  is  published  the  photo- 
graph Anfossi  took,  from  the  deck  of  the 
steamer,  of  our  hippo — the  hippo  that  was 
too  stupid  to  know  when  he  was  dead.  It  is 
not  a  good  photograph,  but  of  our  hippo  it  is 
all  we  have  to  show.  I  am  still  undecided 
whether  to  hang  it  in  the  hall  or  the  dining- 
room. 

The  days  I  spent  on  my  trip  up  the  river 

were  of  delightful  sameness,  sunshine  by  day, 

with  the  great  panorama  drifting  past,  and 

134 


o 
& 
o 

Q 


rt 
-C 


3 

s 

O 

O 

Cu 


HUNTING  THE  HIPPO 

quiet  nights  of  moonlight.  For  diversion, 
there  were  many  hippos,  crocodiles,  and 
monkeys,  and,  though  we  saw  only  their  tracks 
and  heard  them  only  in  the  jungle,  great  ele- 
phants. And  innumerable  strange  birds — 
egrets,  eagles,  gray  parrots,  crimson  cranes, 
and  giant  flamingoes — as  tall  as  a  man  and 
from  tip  to  tip  measuring  eight  feet. 

Each  day  the  programme  was  the  same. 
The  arrival  at  the  wood  post,  where  we  were 
given  only  excuses  and  no  wood,  and  where 
once  or  twice  we  unloaded  blue  cloth  and  bags 
of  salt,  which  is  the  currency  of  the  Upper 
Congo,  and  the  halt  for  hours  to  cut  wood  in 
the  forest. 

Once  we  stopped  at  a  mission  and  noted  the 
contrast  it  made  with  the  bare,  unkempt  posts 
of  the  State.  It  was  the  Catholic  mission  at 
Wombali,  and  it  was  a  beauty  spot  of  flowers, 
thatched  houses,  grass,  and  vegetables.  There 
was  a  brickyard,  and  schools,  and  sewing- 
machines,  and  the  blacks,  instead  of  scowling 
at  us,  nodded  and  smiled  and  looked  happy 
and  contented.  The  Father  was  a  great  red- 
bearded  giant,  who  seemed  to  have  still  stored 
up  in  him  all  the  energy  of  the  North.     While 

I3S 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

the  steamer  was  unloaded  he  raced  me  over 
the  vegetable  garden  and  showed  me  his  farm. 
I  had  seen  other  of  the  Catholic  Missions,  and 
I  spoke  of  how  well  they  looked,  of  the  signs 
they  gave  of  hard  work,  and  of  consideration 
for  the  blacks. 

"  I  am  not  of  that  Order,"  the  Father  said 
gravely.  He  was  speaking  in  English,  and 
added,  as  though  he  expected  some  one  to  re- 
sent it:  "We  are  Jesuits."  No  one  resented  it, 
and  he  added:  "We  have  our  Order  in  your 
country.     Do  you  know  Fordham  College?" 

Did  I  know  it  ?  If  you  are  trying  to  find  our 
farm,  the  automobile  book  tells  you  to  leave 
Fordham  College  on  your  left  after  Jerome 
Avenue. 

"  Of  course,  I  know  it,"  I  said.  "  They  have 
one  of  the  best  baseball  nines  near  New  York; 
they  play  the  Giants  every  spring." 

The  Reverend  Father  started. 

"They  play  with  Giants!"  he  gasped. 

I  did  not  know  how  to  say  "baseball  nines" 
in  French,  but  at  least  he  was  assured  that 
whatever  it  was,  it  was  one  of  the  best  near 
New  York. 

Then  Captain  Jensen's  little  black  boy  ran 

136 


HUNTING  THE  HIPPO 

up  to  tell  me  the  steamer  was  waiting,  and 
began  in  Bangalese  to  beg  something  of  the 
Father.  The  priest  smiled  and  left  us,  re- 
turning with  a  rosary  and  crucifix,  which  the 
boy  hung  round  his  neck,  and  then  knelt, 
and  the  red-bearded  Father  laid  his  fingers 
on  the  boy's  kinky  head.  He  was  a  very 
happy  boy  over  his  new  possession,  and  it 
was  much  coveted  by  all  the  others.  One 
of  the  black  mammies,  to  ward  off  evil  from 
the  little  naked  baby  at  her  breast,  offered  an 
arm's  length  of  blue  cloth  for  "  the  White  Man's 
fetish." 

My  voyage  up  the  Kasai  ended  at  Dima,  the 
headquarters  of  the  Kasai  Concession.  I  had 
been  told  that  at  Dima  I  would  find  a  rubber 
plantation,  and  I  had  gone  there  to  see  it.  I 
found  that  the  plantation  was  four  days  dis- 
tant, and  that  the  boat  for  the  plantation  did 
not  start  for  six  days.  I  also  had  been  told  by 
the  English  missionaries  at  Dima,  that  I  would 
find  an  American  mission.  When  I  reached 
Dima  I  learned  that  the  American  mission  was 
at  a  station  further  up  the  river,  which  could 
not  be  reached  sooner  than  a  month.     That  is 

the  sort  of  information  upon  which  in  the  Congo 

137 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

one  is  forced  to  regulate  his  movements.  As 
there  was  at  Dima  neither  mission  nor  planta- 
tion, and  as  the  only  boat  that  would  leave  it 
in  ten  days  was  departing  the  next  morning,  I 
remained  there  only  one  night.  It  was  a  place 
cut  out  of  the  jungle,  two  hundred  yards 
square,  and  of  all  stations  I  saw  in  the  Congo, 
the  best  managed.  It  is  the  repair  shop  for 
the  steamers  belonging  to  the  Kasai  Conces- 
sion, as  well  as  the  headquarters  of  the  com- 
pany and  the  residence  of  the  director,  M. 
Dryepoint.  He  and  Van  Damme  seemed  to 
be  the  most  popular  officials  in  the  Congo.  M. 
Dryepoint  was  up  the  river,  so  I  did  not  meet 
him,  but  I  was  most  courteously  and  hospita- 
bly entertained  by  M.  Fumiere.  He  gave  me 
a  whole  house  to  myself,  and  personally 
showed  me  over  his  small  kingdom.  All  the 
houses  were  of  brick,  and  the  paths  and  roads 
were  covered  with  gravel  and  lined  with  flowers. 
Nothing  in  the  Congo  is  more  curious  than 
this  pretty  town  of  suburban  villas  and  orderly 
machine  shops;  with  the  muddy  river  for  a 
street  and  the  impenetrable  jungle  for  a  back 
yard.     The  home  of  the  director  at  Dima  is 

the  proud  boast  of  the  entire  Congo.     And  all 

138 


M 

fl 

|pa 

IP 

•^^Hl 

B 

1. 

■AA  1        f*   ^^^1^^               ""^^^^H 

HUNTING  THE  HIPPO 

they  say  of  it  is  true.  It  did  have  a  billiard 
table  and  ice,  and  a  piano,  and  M.  Fumiere 
invited  me  to  join  his  friends  at  an  excellent 
dinner.  In  furnishing  this  celebrated  house, 
the  idea  had  apparently  been  to  place  in  it  the 
things  one  would  least  expect  to  find  in  the 
jungle,  or,  without  wishing  to  be  ungracious, 
anywhere.  So,  although  there  are  no  women 
at  Dima,  there  are  great  mirrors  in  brass 
frames,  chandeliers  of  glass  with  festoons  and 
pendants  of  glass,  metal  lamps  with  shades  of 
every  color,  painted  plaster  statuettes  and 
carved  silk-covered  chairs.  In  the  red  glow 
of  the  lamps,  surrounded  by  these  Belgian 
atrocities,  M.  Fumiere  sat  down  to  the  pianola. 
The  heat  of  Africa  filled  the  room ;  on  one  side 
we  could  have  touched  the  jungle,  on  the  other 
in  the  river  the  hippopotamus  puffed  and 
snorted.  M.  Fumiere  pulled  out  the  stops, 
and  upon  the  heat  and  silence  of  the  night, 
floated  the  "Evening  Star,"  Mascagni's  ** In- 
termezzo," and  "Chin-chin  Chinaman." 

Next  morning  I  left  for  Leopoldville  in  a 
boat  much  larger  than  the  Deliverance,  but 
with   none  of  her  cheer  or  good-fellowship. 

This  boat  was  run  by  the  black  wife  of  the 

139 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

captain.  Trailing  her  velvet  gown,  and  clean- 
ing her  teeth  with  a  stick  of  wood,  she  pene- 
trated to  every  part  of  the  steamer,  making 
discipline  impossible  and  driving  the  crew  out 
of  control. 

I  was  glad  to  escape  at  Kinchassa  to  the 
clean  and  homelike  bungalow  and  beautiful 
gardens  of  the  only  Englishman  still  in  the 
employ  of  the  State,  Mr.  Cuthbert  Malet, 
who  gave  me  hospitably  of  his  scanty  store 
of  "Scotch,"  and,  what  was  even  more  of  a 
sacrifice,  of  his  precious  handful  of  eggs. 
A  week  later  I  was  again  in  Boma,  waiting  for 
the  Nigeria  to  take  me  back  to  Liverpool. 

Before  returning  to  the  West  Coast  and 
leaving  the  subject  of  the  Congo,  I  wish  to 
testify  to  what  seemed  to  me  the  enormously 
important  work  that  is  being  done  by  the 
missionaries.  I  am  not  always  an  admirer 
of  the  missionary.  Some  of  those  one  meets 
in  China  and  Japan  seem  to  be  taking  much 
more  interest  in  their  own  bodies  than  in  the 
souls  of  others.  But,  in  the  Congo,  almost 
the  only  people  who  are  working  in  behalf  of 
the  natives  are  those  attached  to  the  missions. 

Because  they  bear  witness  against  Leopold, 

140 


HUNTING  THE  HIPPO 

much  is  said  by  his  hired  men  and  press  agents 
against  them.  But  they  are  deserving  of  great 
praise.  Some  of  them  are  narrow  and  bigoted, 
and  one  could  wish  they  were  much  more 
tolerant  of  their  white  brothers  in  exile,  but 
compared  with  the  good  they  do,  these 
faults  count  for  nothing.  It  is  due  to  them 
that  Europe  and  the  United  States  know  the 
truth  about  the  Congo.  They  were  the  first 
to  bear  witness,  and  the  hazardous  work  they 
still  are  doing  for  their  fellow  men  is  honest, 
practical  Christianity. 


X4X 


VI 

OLD   CALABAR 

WHILE  I  was  up  the  Congo  and  the 
Kasai  rivers,  Mrs.  Davis  had  remained 
at  Boma,  and  when  I  rejoined  her,  we  booked 
passage  home  on  the  Nigeria.  We  chose  the 
Nigeria,  which  is  an  Elder-Dempster  freight 
and  passenger  steamer,  in  preference  to  the  fast 
mail  steamer  because  of  the  ports  of  the  West 
Coast  we  wished  to  see  as  many  as  possible. 
And,  on  her  six  weeks'  voyage  to  Liverpool,  the 
Nigeria  promised  to  spend  as  much  time  at 
anchor  as  at  sea.  On  the  Coast  it  is  a  more 
serious  matter  to  reserve  a  cabin  than  in  New 
York.  You  do  not  stop  at  an  uptown  office, 
and  on  a  diagram  of  the  ship's  insides,  as 
though  you  were  playing  roulette,  point  at  a 
number.  Instead,  as  you  are  to  occupy  your 
cabin,  not  for  one,  but  for  six,  weeks,  you 
search,  as  vigilantly  as  a  navy  officer  looking 

for  contraband,  the  ship  herself  and  each  cabin. 

143 


OLD  CALABAR 

But  going  aboard  was  a  simple  ceremony. 
The  Hotel  Splendide  stands  on  the  bank  of 
the  Congo  River.  After  saying  "Good-by" 
to  her  proprietor,  I  walked  to  the  edge  of 
the  water  and  waved  my  helmet.  In  the 
Congo,  a  white  man  standing  in  the  sun  with- 
out a  hat  is  a  spectacle  sufficiently  thrilling 
to  excite  the  attention  of  all,  and  at  once 
Captain  Hughes  of  the  Nigeria  sent  a  cargo 
boat  to  the  rescue,  and  on  the  shoulders  of 
naked  Kroo  boys  Mrs.  Davis  and  the  maid, 
and  the  trunks,  spears,  tents,  bathtubs,  carved 
idols,  native  mats,  and  a  live  mongoos  were 
dropped  into  it,  and  we  were  paddled  to  the 
gangway. 

"If  that's  all,  we  might  as  well  get  under 
way,"  said  Captain  Hughes.  The  anchor 
chains  creaked,  from  the  bank  the  proprietor 
of  the  Splendide  waved  his  hand,  and  the 
long  voyage  to  Liverpool  had  begun.  It 
was  as  casual  as  halting  and  starting  a  cable- 
car. 

According  to  schedule,  after  leaving  the 
Congo,  we  should  have  gone  south  and 
touched  at  Loanda.  But  on  this  voyage, 
outward    bound,    the    Nigeria    had    carried, 

143 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

to  help  build  the  railroad  at  Lobito  Bay,  a 
deckload  of  camels.  They  had  proved  trying 
passengers,  and  instead  of  first  touching  at 
the  Congo,  Captain  Hughes  had  continued 
on  south  and  put  them  ashore.  So  we  were 
robbed  of  seeing  both  Loanda  and  the  camels. 

This  line,  until  Calabar  is  reached,  carries 
but  few  passengers,  and,  except  to  receive 
cargo,  the  ship  is  not  fully  in  commission. 
During  this  first  week  she  is  painted,  and 
holystoned,  her  carpets  are  beaten,  her  cabins 
scrubbed  and  aired,  and  the  passengers  mess 
with  the  officers.  So,  of  the  ship's  life,  we 
acquired  an  intimate  knowledge,  her  interests 
became  our  own,  and  the  necessity  of  feeding 
her  gaping  holds  with  cargo  was  personal 
and  acute.  On  a  transatlantic  steamer,  when 
once  the  hatches  are  down,  the  captain  need 
think  only  of  navigation;  on  these  coasters, 
the  hatches  never  are  down,  and  the  captain, 
that  sort  of  captain  dear  to  the  heart  of  the 
owners,  is  the  man  who  fills  the  holds. 

A  skipper  going  ashore  to  drum  up  trade 
was  a  novel  spectacle.  Imagine  the  captain 
of  one  of  the  Atlantic  greyhounds  prying  among 

the  warehouses  on  West  Street,  demanding  of 

144 


OLD  CALABAR 

the  merchants:  "Anything  going  my  way, 
this  trip  ? "  He  would  scorn  to  do  it.  Before 
his  passengers  have  passed  the  custom  officers, 
he  is  in  mufti,  and  on  his  way  to  his  villa  on 
Brooklyn  Heights,  or  to  the  Lambs  Club, 
and  until  the  Blue  Peter  is  again  at  the  fore, 
little  he  cares  for  passengers,  mails,  or  cargo. 
But  the  captain  of  a  "coaster"  must  be  sailor 
and  trader,  too.  He  is  expected  to  navigate 
a  coast,  the  latest  chart  of  which  is  dated 
somewhere  near  1830,  and  at  which  the  waves 
rush  in  walls  of  spray,  sometimes  as  high 
as  a  three-story  house.  He  must  speak  all 
the  known  languages  of  Europe,  and  all  the 
unknown  tongues  of  innumerable  black  broth- 
ers. At  each  port  he  must  entertain  out  of 
his  own  pocket  the  agents  of  all  the  trading 
houses,  and,  in  his  head,  he  must  keep  the 
market  price,  "when  laid  down  in  Liverpool," 
of  mahogany,  copra,  copal,  rubber,  palm  oil, 
and  ivory.  To  see  that  the  agent  has  not  over- 
looked a  few  bags  of  ground  nuts,  or  a  dozen 
puncheons  of  oil,  he  must  go  on  shore  and 
peer  into  the  compound  of  each  factory,  and 
on  board  he  must  keep  peace  between  the 
Kroo  boys  and   the  black  deck  passengers, 

145 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

and  see  that  the  white  passengers  with  a 
temperature  of  105,  do  not  drink  more  than 
is  good  for  them.  At  least,  those  are  a  few 
of  the  duties  the  captains  on  the  ships  con- 
trolled by  Sir  Alfred  Jones,  who  is  Elder  and 
Dempster,  are  expected  to  perform.  No  won- 
der Sir  Alfred  is  popular. 

Our  first  port  of  call  was  Landana,  in 
Portuguese  territory,  but  two  ships  of  the 
Woermann  Line  were  there  ahead  of  us  and 
had  gobbled  up  all  the  freight.  So  we  could 
but  up  anchor  and  proceed  to  Libreville, 
formerly  the  capital  of  the  French  Congo. 
At  five  in  the  morning  by  the  light  of  a  ship's 
lantern,  we  were  paddled  ashore  to  drum 
up  trade.  We  found  two  traders,  Ives  and 
Thomas,  who  had  waiting  for  the  Nigeria 
at  the  mouth  of  the  Gabun  River  six  hundred 
logs  of  mahogany,  and,  in  consequence,  there 
was  general  rejoicing,  and  Scotch  and  "  spark- 
lets," and  even  music  from  a  German  music- 
box  that  would  burst  into  song  only  after  it 
had  been  fed  with  a  copper.  One  of  the 
clerks  said  that  Ives  had  forgotten  how  to 
extract  the  coppers  and  in  consequence  was 

using  the  music-box  as  a  savings  bank. 

146 


OLD  CALABAR 

In  the  French  Congo  the  natives  are  per- 
mitted to  trade;  in  the  Congo  Free  State  they 
are  not,  or,  rather,  they  have  nothing  with 
which  to  trade,  and  the  contrast  between  the 
empty  "factories"  of  the  Congo  and  those  of 
Libreville,  crowded  with  natives  buying  and 
selling,  was  remarkable.  There  also  was  a 
conspicuous  difference  in  the  quality  and 
variety  of  the  goods.  In  Leopold's  Congo 
"trade"  goods  is  a  term  of  contempt.  It  de- 
scribes articles  manufactured  only  for  those 
who  have  no  choice  and  must  accept  what- 
ever is  offered.  When  your  customers  must 
take  what  you  please  to  give  them  the  quality 
of  your  goods  is  likely  to  deteriorate.  Salt 
of  the  poorest  grade,  gaudy  fabrics  that  neither 
"wear"  nor  "wash,"  bars  of  coarse  soap 
(the  native  is  continually  washing  his  single 
strip  of  cloth),  and  axe-heads  made  of  iron^ 
are  what  Leopold  thinks  are  a  fair  exchange 
for  the  forced  labor  of  the  black. 

But  the  articles  I  found  in  the  factories  in 
Libreville  were  what,  in  the  Congo,  are  called 
"white  man's  goods"  and  were  of  excellent 
quality   and   in   great  variety.    There  were 

even  French  novels  and  cigars.     Some  of  the 

147 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

latter,  called  the  Young  American  on  account 
of  the  name  and  the  flag  on  the  lid,  tempted 
me,  until  I  saw  they  were  manufactured  by 
Dusseldorffer  and  Vanderswassen,  and  one 
suspected  Rotterdam. 

In  Ives's  factory  I  saw  for  the  first  time  a 
"trade"  rifle,  or  Tower  musket.  In  the 
vernacular  of  the  Coast,  they  are  "gas-pipe" 
guns.  They  are  put  together  in  England,  and 
to  a  white  man  are  a  most  terrifying  weapon. 
The  original  Tower  muskets,  such  as,  in  the 
days  of  '76,  were  hung  over  the  fireplace  of 
the  forefathers  of  the  Sons  of  the  Revolution, 
were  manufactured  in  England,  and  stamped 
with  the  word  "Tower,"  and  for  the  reigning 
king  G.  R.  I  suppose  at  that  date  at  the 
Tower  of  London  there  was  an  arsenal;  but 
I  am  ready  to  be  corrected.  To-day  the  guns 
are  manufactured  at  Birmingham,  but  they 
still  have  the  flint  lock,  and  still  are  stamped 
with  the  word  "Tower"  and  the  royal  crown 
over  the  letters  G.  R.,  and  with  the  arrow 
which  is  supposed  to  mark  the  property  of  the 
government.  The  barrel  is  three  feet  four 
inches  long,  and  the  bore  is  that  of  an  artesian 

well.     The   native    fills   four   inches   of  this 

148 


OLD  CALABAR 

cavity  with  powder  and  the  remaining  three 
feet  with  rusty  nails,  barbed  wire,  leaden 
slugs,  and  the  legs  and  broken  parts  of  iron 
pots.  An  officer  of  the  W.  A.  F.  F.'s,  in  a 
fight  in  the  bush  in  South  Nigeria,  had  one  of 
these  things  fired  at  him  from  a  distance  of 
fifteen  feet.  He  told  me  all  that  saved  him 
was  that  when  the  native  pulled  the  trigger 
the  recoil  of  the  gun  "kicked"  the  muzzle 
two  feet  in  the  air  and  the  native  ten  feet  into 
the  bush.  I  bought  a  Tower  rifle  at  the  trade 
price,  a  pound,  and  brought  it  home.  But 
although  my  friends  have  offered  to  back 
either  end  of  the  gun  as  being  the  more  de- 
structive, we  have  found  no  one  with  a 
sufficient  sporting  spirit  to  determine  the 
point. 

Libreville  is  a  very  pretty  town,  but  when  it 
was  laid  out  the  surveyors  just  missed  placing 
the  Equator  in  its  main  street.  It  is  easy  to 
understand  why  with  such  a  live  wire  in  the 
vicinity  Libreville  is  warm.  From  the  same 
cause  it  also  is  rich  in  flowers,  vines,  and  trees 
growing  in  generous,  undisciplined  abundance, 
making  of  Libreville  one  vast  botanical  gar- 
den, and  burying  the  town  and  its  bungalows 

149 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

under  screens  of  green  and  branches  of  scarlet 
and  purple  flowers.  Close  to  the  surf  runs 
an  avenue  bordered  by  giant  cocoanut  palms 
and,  after  the  sun  is  down,  this  is  the  fashion- 
able promenade.  Here  every  evening  may 
be  seen  in  their  freshest  linen  the  six  married 
white  men  of  Libreville,  and,  in  the  latest 
Paris  frocks,  the  six  married  ladies,  while 
from  the  verandas  of  the  factories  that  line 
the  sea  front  and  from  under  the  paper  lanterns 
of  the  Cafe  Guion  the  clerks  and  traders  sip 
their  absinthe  and  play  dominoes,  and  cast 
envious  glances  at  the  six  fortunate  fellow 
exiles. 

For  several  days  we  lay  a  few  miles 
south  of  Libreville,  off^  the  mouth  of  the 
Gabun  River,  taking  in  the  logs  of  mahogany. 
It  was  a  continuous  performance  of  the 
greatest  interest.  I  still  do  not  understand 
why  all  those  engaged  in  it  were  not  drowned, 
or  pounded  to  a  pulp.  Just  before  we 
touched  at  the  Gabun  River,  two  tramp 
steamers,  chartered  by  Americans,  carried  off 
a  full  cargo  of  this  mahogany  to  the  States. 
It  was  an  experiment  the  result  of  which  the 
traders  of  Libreville  are  awaiting  with  interest. 

ISO 


OLD  CALABAR 

The  mahogany  that  the  reader  sees  in  America 
probably  comes  from  Hayti,  Cuba,  or  Belize, 
and  is  of  much  finer  quality  than  that  of  the 
Gabun  River,  which  latter  is  used  for  making 
what  the  trade  calls  "fancy"  cigar-boxes  and 
cheap  furniture.  But  before  it  becomes  a 
cigar-box  it  passes  through  many  adventures. 
Weeks  before  the  steamer  arrives  the  trader, 
followed  by  his  black  boys,  explores  the  jungle 
and  blazes  the  trees.  Then  the  boys  cut  trails 
through  the  forest,  and,  using  logs  for  rollers, 
drag  and  push  the  tree  trunks  to  the  bank  of 
the  river.  There  the  tree  is  cut  into  huge 
cubes,  weighing  about  a  ton,  and  measuring 
twelve  to  fifteen  feet  in  length  and  three  feet 
across  each  face.  A  boy  can  "shape"  one 
of  these  logs  in  a  day. 

Although  his  pay  varies  according  to  whether 
the  tributaries  of  the  river  are  full  or  low,  so 
making  the  moving  of  the  logs  easy  or  difficult, 
he  can  earn  about  three  pounds  ten  shillings 
a  month,  paid  in  cash.  Compared  with  the 
eighty  cents  a  month  paid  only  a  few  miles 
away  in  the  Congo  Free  State,  and  in  "trade" 
goods,  these  are  good  wages.  When  the  log 
is  shaped  the  mark  of  the  trader  is  branded 

151 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

on  it  with  an  iron,  just  as  we  brand  cattle,  and 
it  is  turned  loose  on  the  river.  At  the  mouth 
of  the  river  there  is  little  danger  of  the  log 
escaping,  for  the  waves  are  stronger  than  the 
tide,  and  drive  the  logs  upon  the  shore.  There, 
in  the  surf,  we  found  these  tons  of  mahogany 
pounding  against  each  other.  In  the  ship's 
steam-launch  were  iron  chains,  a  hundred 
yards  long,  to  which,  at  intervals,  were  fastened 
"dogs,"  or  spikes.  These  spikes  were  driven 
into  the  end  of  a  log,  the  brand  upon  the  log 
was  noted  by  the  captain  and  trader,  and  the 
logs,  chained  together  like  the  vertebrae  of  a 
great  sea  serpent,  were  towed  to  the  ship's  side. 
There  they  were  made  fast,  and  three  Kroo 
boys  knocked  the  spike  out  of  each  log,  warped 
a  chain  around  it,  and  made  fast  that  chain  to 
the  steel  hawser  of  the  winch.  As  it  was 
drawn  to  the  deck  a  Senegalese  soldier,  acting 
for  the  Customs,  gave  it  a  second  blow  with  a 
branding  hammer,  and,  thundering  and  smash- 
ing, it  swung  into  the  hold. 

In  the  "round  up"  of  the  logs  the  star 
performers  were  the  three  Kroo  boys  at  the 
ship's  side.  For  days,  in  fascinated  horror, 
the  six  passengers  watched  them,  prayed  for 


There,  in  the  Surf,  We  Found  These  Tons  of  Mahogany,  Pounding 
Against  Each  Other. 


OLD  CALABAR 

them,  and  made  bets  as  to  which  would  be 
the  first  to  die.  One  understands  that  a 
Kroo  boy  is  as  much  at  home  in  the  sea  as 
on  shore,  but  these  boys  were  neither  in  the 
sea  nor  on  shore.  They  were  balancing  them- 
selves on  blocks  of  slippery  wood  that  weighed 
a  ton,  but  which  were  hurled  about  by  the 
great  waves  as  though  they  were  life-belts. 
All  night  the  hammering  of  the  logs  made 
the  ship  echo  like  a  monster  drum,  and  all 
day  without  an  instant's  pause  each  log 
reared  and  pitched,  spun  like  a  barrel,  dived 
like  a  porpoise,  or,  broadside,  battered  itself 
against  the  iron  plates.  But,  no  matter  what 
tricks  it  played,  a  Kroo  boy  rode  it  as  easily 
as  though  it  were  a  horse  in  a  merry-go-round. 
It  was  a  wonderful  exhibition.  It  furnished 
all  the  thrills  that  one  gets  when  watching  a 
cowboy  on  a  bucking  bronco,  or  a  trained 
seal.  Again  and  again  a  log,  in  wicked  con- 
spiracy with  another  log,  would  plan  to 
entice  a  Kroo  boy  between  them,  and  smash 
him.  At  the  sight  the  passengers  would 
shriek  a  warning,  the  boy  would  dive  between 
the  logs,  and  a  mass  of  twelve  hundred  pounds 
of  mahogany   would   crash   against   a   mass 

153 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

weighing  fifteen  hundred  with  a  report  like 
coUiding  freight  cars. 

And  then,  as,  breathless,  we  waited  to  sec 
what  once  was  a  Kroo  boy  float  to  the  surface, 
he  would  appear  sputtering  and  grinning,  and 
saying  to  us  as  clearly  as  a  Kroo  smile  can 
say  it:   "He  never  touched  me!" 

Two  days  after  we  had  stored  away  the 

mahogany  we  anchored  off  Duala,  the  capital 

of  the  German  Cameroons.     Duala  is  built 

upon  a  high  cliff,  and  from  the  water  the  white 

and  yellow  buildings  with  many  pillars  gave 

it  the  appearance  of  a  city.     Instead,  it  is  a 

clean,  pretty  town.     With  the  German  habit 

of  order,  it  has  been  laid  out  like  barracks, 

but   with   many   gardens,   well-kept,   shaded 

streets,   and   high,   cool  houses,   scientifically 

planned  to  meet  the  necessities  of  the  tropics. 

At  Duala  the  white  traders  and  officials  were 

plump  and  cheerful  looking,  and  in  the  air 

there    was    more    of  prosperity    than    fever. 

The  black  and  white  sentry  boxes  and  the 

native    soldiers    practising   the    stork   march 

of  the  Kaiser's  army  were  signs  of  a  rigid 

military    rule,    but    the    signs    of  Germany's 

efforts  in  trade  were  more  conspicuous.    No- 

154 


OLD  CALABAR 

where  on  the  coast  did  we  see  as  at  Duala  such 
gorgeous  offices  as  those  of  the  great  trading 
house  of  Wocrmann,  the  hated  rivals  of  "  Sir 
Alfred,"  such  carved  furniture,  such  shining 
brass  railings,  and  nowhere  else  did  we  see 
plate-glass  windows,  in  which,  with  unceasing 
wonder,  the  natives  stared  at  reflections  of 
their  own  persons.  In  the  river  there  was  a 
private  dry  dock  of  the  Woermanns,  and 
along  the  wharfs  for  acres  was  lumber  for  the 
Woermanns,  boxes  of  trade  goods,  puncheons 
and  casks  for  the  Woermanns,  private  cooper 
shops  and  private  machine  shops  and  private 
banks  for  the  Woermanns.  The  house  flag 
of  the  Woermanns  became  as  significant  as 
that  of  a  reigning  sovereign.  One  felt  inclined 
to  salute  it. 

The  success  of  the  German  merchant  on 
the  East  Coast  and  over  all  the  world  appears 
to  be  a  question  of  character.  He  is  patient, 
methodical,  painstaking;  it  is  his  habit  of 
industry  that  is  helping  him  to  close  port  after 
port  to  English,  French,  and  American  goods. 
The  German  clerks  do  not  go  to  the  East 
Coast  or  to  China  and  South  America  to  drink 
absinthe  or  whiskey,  or  to  play  dominoes  or 

155 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

cricket.  They  work  twice  as  long  as  do  the 
other  white  men,  and  during  those  longer 
office  hours  they  toil  twice  as  hard.  One  of 
our  passengers  was  a  German  agent  returning 
for  his  vacation.  I  used  to  work  in  the  smok- 
ing-room and  he  always  was  at  the  next  table, 
also  at  work,  on  his  ledgers  and  account  books. 
He  was  so  industrious  that  he  bored  me,  and 
one  day  I  asked  him  why,  instead  of  spoiling 
his  vacation  with  work,  he  had  not  balanced 
his  books  before  he  left  the  Coast. 

"It  is  an  error,'*  he  said;  "I  can  not  find 
him."  And  he  explained  that  in  the  record 
of  his  three  years*  stewardship,  which  he  was 
to  turn  over  to  the  directors  in  Berlin,  there 
was  somewhere  a  mistake  of  a  sixpence. 

"But,**  I  protested,  "what's  sixpence  to 
you  ?  You  drink  champagne  all  day.  You 
begin  at  nine  in  the  morning!** 

"I  drink  champagne,"  said  the  clerk,  "be- 
cause for  three  years  I  have  myself  alone  in 
the  bush  lived,  but,  can  I  to  my  directors  go 
with  a  book  not  balanced?"  He  laid  his 
hand  upon  his  heart  and  shook  his  head.  "  It 
is  my  heart  that  tells  me  'No!*** 

After  three  weeks  he  gave  a  shout,  his  face 
156 


A  Log  of  Mahogany  Jammed  in  the  Anchor  Chains. 


OLD  CALABAR 

blushed  with  pleasure,  and  actual  tears  were 
in  his  eyes.  He  had  dug  out  the  error,  and  at 
once  he  celebrated  the  recovery  of  the  single 
sixpence  by  giving  me  twenty-four  shillings* 
worth  of  champagne.  It  is  a  true  story,  and 
illustrates,  I  think,  the  training  and  method  of 
the  German  mind,  of  the  industry  of  the 
merchants  who  are  trading  over  all  the  seas. 
As  a  rule  the  "trade"  goods  "made  in  Ger- 
many" are  "shoddy."  They  do  not  compare 
in  quality  with  those  of  England  or  the  States; 
in  every  foreign  port  you  will  find  that  the 
English  linen  is  the  best,  that  the  American 
agricultural  implements,  American  hardware, 
saws,  axes,  machetes,  are  superior  to  those 
manufactured  in  any  other  country.  But  the 
German,  though  his  goods  are  poorer,  cuts 
the  coat  to  please  the  customer.  He  studies 
the  wishes  of  the  man  who  is  to  pay.  He  is 
not  the  one  who  says:  "Take  it,  or  leave  it." 
The  agent  of  one  of  the  largest  English 
firms  on  the  Ivory  Coast,  one  that  started  by 
trading  in  slaves,  said  to  me:  "Our  largest 
shipment  to  this  coast  is  gin.  This  is  a 
French  colony,  and  if  the  French  traders  and 
I  were  patriots  instead  of  merchants  we  would 

157 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

buy  from  our  own  people,  but  we  buy  from 
the  Germans,  because  trade  follows  no  flag. 
They  make  a  gin  out  of  potatoes  colored  with 
rum  or  gin,  and  label  it  'Demerara*  and 
'Jamaica.*  They  sell  it  to  us  on  the  wharf 
at  Antwerp  for  ninepence  a  gallon,  and  we 
sell  it  at  nine  francs  per  dozen  bottles.  Ger- 
many is  taking  our  trade  from  us  because  she 
undersells  us,  and  because  her  merchants 
don't  wait  for  trade  to  come  to  them,  but  go 
after  it.  Before  the  Woermann  boat  is  due 
their  agent  here  will  come  to  my  factory  and 
spy  out  all  I  have  in  my  compound.  *Why 
don't  you  ship  those  logs  with  us  ? '  he'll  ask. 

"  '  Can't  spare  the  boys  to  carry  them  to  the 
beach,'  I'll  say. 

"  *  I'll  furnish  the  boys,'  he'll  answer.  That's 
the  German  way. 

"The  Elder-Dempster  boats  lie  three  miles 
out  at  sea  and  blow  a  whistle  at  us.  They 
act  as  though  by  carrying  our  freight  they 
were  doing  us  a  favor.  These  German  ships, 
to  save  you  the  long  pull,  anchor  close  to  the 
beach  and  lend  you  their  own  shore  boats 
and  their  own  boys  to  work  your  cargo.     And 

if  you  give  them  a  few  tons  to  carry,  like  as 

X58 


OLD  CALABAR 

not  they'll  *dash'  you  to  a  case  of  'fizz/  And 
meanwhile  the  English  captain  is  lying  outside 
the  bar  tooting  his  whistle  and  wanting  to 
know  if  you  think  he's  going  to  run  his  ship 
aground  for  a  few  bags  of  rotten  kernels. 
And  he  can't  see,  and  the  people  at  home  can't 
see,  why  the  Germans  are  crowding  us  off 
the  Coast." 

Just  outside  of  Duala,  in  the  native  village 
of  Bell  Town,  is  the  palace  and  the  harem  of 
the  ruler  of  the  tribe  that  gave  its  name  to 
the  country.  Mango  Bell,  King  of  the  Came- 
roons.  His  brother.  Prince  William,  sells 
photographs  and  "souvenirs."  We  bought 
photographs,  and  on  the  strength  of  that  hinted 
at  a  presentation  at  court.  Brother  William 
seemed  doubtful,  so  we  bought  enough  postal 
cards  to  establish  us  as  etrangers  de  distinctiotiy 
and  he  sent  up  our  names.  With  Pivani, 
Hatton  &  Cookson's  chief  clerk  we  were  es- 
corted to  the  royal  presence.  The  palace  is 
a  fantastic,  pagoda-like  building  of  three 
stories;  and  furnished  with  many  mirrors, 
carved  oak  sideboards,  and  lamp-shades  of 
colored    glass.     Mango    Bell,    King    of   the 

Cameroons,    sounds    like    a    character   in    a 

159 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

comic  opera,  but  the  king  was  an  extremely 
serious,  tall,  handsome,  and  self-respecting 
negro.  Having  been  educated  in  England,  he 
spoke  much  more  correct  English  than  any  of 
us.  Of  the  few  "  Kings  I  Have  Met,"  both 
tame  and  wild,  his  manners  were  the  most 
charming.  Back  of  the  palace  is  an  enor- 
mously long  building  under  one  roof.  Here 
live  his  thirty-five  queens.  To  them  we  were 
not  presented. 

Prince  William  asked  me  if  I  knew  where 
in  America  there  was  a  street  called  Fifth 
Avenue.  I  suggested  New  York.  He  re- 
ferred to  a  large  Bible,  and  finding,  much  to  his 
surprise,  that  my  guess  was  correct,  com- 
missioned me  to  buy  him,  from  a  firm  on  that 
street,  just  such  another  Bible  as  the  one  in 
his  hand.  He  forgot  to  give  me  the  money 
to  pay  for  it,  but  loaned  us  a  half-dozen  little 
princes  to  bear  our  purchases  to  the  wharf. 
For  this  service  their  royal  highnesses  gracious- 
ly condescended  to  receive  a  small  "dash," 
and  with  the  chief  clerk  were  especially  de- 
lighted. He,  being  a  sleight-of-hand  artist, 
apparently  took  five-franc  pieces  out  of  their 
Sunday  clothes  and   from  their  kinky  hair. 

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OLD  CALABAR 

When  we  left  they  were  rapidly  disrobing  to 
find  if  any  more  five-franc  pieces  were  con- 
cealed about  their  persons. 

The  morning  after  we  sailed  from  Duala 
we  anchored  in  the  river  in  front  of  Calabar, 
the  capital  of  Southern  Nigeria.  Of  all  the 
ports  at  which  we  touched  on  the  Coast, 
Calabar  was  the  hottest,  the  best  looking,  and 
the  best  administered.  It  is  a  model  colony, 
but  to  bring  it  to  the  state  it  now  enjoys  has 
cost  sums  of  money  entirely  out  of  proportion 
to  those  the  colony  has  earned.  The  money 
has  been  spent  in  cutting  down  the  jungle, 
filling  in  swamps  that  breed  mosquitoes  and 
fever,  and  in  laying  out  gravel  walks,  water 
mains,  and  open  cement  gutters,  and  in 
erecting  model  hospitals,  barracks,  and  ad- 
ministrative offices.  Even  grass  has  been 
made  to  grow,  and  the  high  bluff  upon  which 
are  situated  the  homes  of  the  white  officials 
and  Government  House  has  been  trimmed 
and  cultivated  and  tamed  until  it  looks  like 
an  English  park.  It  is  a  complete  imitation, 
even  to  golf  links  and  tennis  courts.  But 
the  fight  that  has  been  made  against  the 
jungle  has  not  stopped  with  golf  links.     In 

i6i 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

1896  the  death  rate  was  ten  men  out  of  every 
hundred.  That  corresponds  to  what  in  war- 
fare is  a  decimating  fire,  upon  which  an 
officer,  without  danger  of  reproof,  may  with- 
draw his  men.  But  at  Calabar  the  English 
doctors  did  not  withdraw,  and  now  the  death 
rate  is  as  low  as  three  out  of  every  hundred. 
That  Calabar,  or  any  part  of  the  West  Coast, 
will  ever  be  made  entirely  healthy  is  doubtful. 
Man  can  cut  down  a  forest  and  fill  in  a  swamp, 
but  he  can  not  reach  up,  as  to  a  gas  jet,  and 
turn  oflF  the  sun.  And  at  Calabar,  even  at 
night  when  the  sun  has  turned  itself  off,  the 
humidity  and  the  heat  leave  one  sweating, 
tossing,  and  gasping  for  air.  In  Calabar  the 
first  thing  a  white  man  learns  is  not  to  take 
any  liberties  with  the  sun.  When  he  dresses, 
eats,  drinks,  and  moves  about  the  sun  is  as 
constantly  on  his  mind,  as  it  is  on  the  face  of 
the  sun-dial.  The  chief  ascent  to  the  top  of 
the  bluff  where  the  white  people  live  is  up  a 
steep  cement  walk  about  eighty  yards  long. 
At  the  foot  of  this  a  white  man  will  be  met 
by  four  hammock-bearers,  and  you  will  sec 
him  get  into  the  hammock  and  be  carried  in 

it  the  eighty  yards. 

162 


OLD  CALABAR 

For  even  that  short  distance  he  is  taking  no 
chances.  But  while  he  nurses  his  vitahty  and 
cares  for  his  health  he  does  not  use  the  sun 
as  an  excuse  for  laziness  or  for  slipshod  work. 
I  have  never  seen  a  place  in  the  tropics  where, 
in  spite  of  the  handicap  of  damp,  fierce  heat, 
the  officers  and  civil  officials  are  so  keenly  and 
constantly  employed,  where  the  bright  work 
was  so  bright,  and  the  whitewash  so  white. 

Out  at  the  barracks  of  the  West  African 
Frontier  Force,  the  W.  A.  F.  F.'s,  the  officers, 
instead  of  from  the  shade  of  the  veranda 
watching  the  non-coms,  teach  a  native  the 
manual,  were  themselves  at  work,  and  each 
was  howling  orders  at  the  black  recruits  and 
smashing  a  gun  against  his  hip  and  shoulder 
as  smartly  as  a  drill  sergeant.  I  found  the 
standard  maintained  at  Calabar  the  more 
interesting  because  the  men  were  almost 
entirely  their  own  audience.  If  they  make 
the  place  healthy,  and  attractive-looking,  and 
dress  for  dinner,  and  shy  at  cocktails,  and 
insist  that  their  tan  shoes  shall  glow  like 
meershaum  pipes,  it  is  not  because  of  the  re- 
fining presence  of  lovely  women,  but  because 

the   men   themselves   like   things   that   way. 

163 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

The  men  of  Calabar  have  learned  that  when 
the  sun  is  at  no,  morals,  like  material  things, 
disintegrate,  and  that,  though  the  temptation 
is  to  go  about  in  bath-room  slippers  and 
pajamas,  one  is  wiser  to  bolster  up  his  drenched 
and  drooping  spirit  with  a  stiff  shirt  front  and 
a  mess  jacket.  They  tell  that  in  a  bush 
station  in  upper  Nigeria,  one  officer  got  his 
D.  S.  O.  because  with  an  audience  of  only  a 
white  sergeant  he  persisted  in  a  habit  of  shav- 
ing twice  a  day. 

There  are  very  few  women  in  Calabar. 
There  are  three  or  four  who  are  wives  of 
officials,  two  nurses  employed  by  the  govern- 
ment, and  the  Mother  Superior  and  Sisters 
of  the  Order  of  St.  Joseph,  and,  of  course,  all 
of  them  are  great  belles.  For  the  Sisters, 
especially  the  officers,  the  government  people, 
the  traders,  the  natives,  even  the  rival  mis- 
sionaries, have  the  most  tremendous  respect 
and  admiration.  The  sacrifice  of  the  woman 
who,  to  be  near  her  husband  on  the  Coast, 
consents  to  sicken  and  fade  and  grow  old 
before  her  time,  and  of  the  nurse  who,  to  pre- 
serve the  health  of  others,  risks  her  own,  is 

very  great;    but  the  sacrifice  of  the  Sisters, 

164 


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OLD  CALABAR 

who  have  renounced  all  thought  of  home  and 
husband,  and  who  have  exiled  themselves  to 
this  steaming  swamp-land,  seems  the  most  un- 
selfish. In  order  to  support  the  150  little 
black  boys  and  girls  who  are  at  school  at  the 
mission,  the  Sisters  rob  themselves  of  every- 
thing except  the  little  that  will  keep  them 
alive.  Two,  in  addition  to  their  work  at  the 
mission,  act  as  nurses  in  the  English  hospital, 
and  for  that  they  receive  together  ;^6oo.  This 
forms  the  sole  regular  income  of  the  five 
women;  for  each  ^120  a  year.  With  anything 
else  that  is  given  them  in  charity,  they  buy 
supplies  for  the  little  converts.  They  live 
in  a  house  of  sandstone  and  zinc  that  holds 
the  heat  like  a  flat-iron,  they  are  obliged  to 
wear  a  uniform  that  is  of  material  and  fashion 
so  unsuited  to  the  tropics  that  Dr.  Chichester, 
in  charge  of  the  hospital,  has  written  in  protest 
against  it  to  Rome,  and  on  many  days  they 
fast,  not  because  the  Church  bids  them  so  to 
do,  but  because  they  have  no  food.  And 
with  it  all,  these  five  gentlewomen  are  always 
eager,  cheerful,  sweet  of  temper,  and  a  living 
blessing  to  all  who  meet  them.  What  now 
troubles  them  is  that  they  have  no  room  to 

165 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

accommodate  the  many  young  heathen  who 
come  to  them  to  be  taught  to  wear  clothes, 
and  to  be  good  Httle  boys  and  girls.  This  is 
causing  the  Sisters  great  distress.  Any  one 
who  does  not  believe  in  that  selfish  theory, 
that  charity  begins  at  home,  but  who  would 
like  to  help  to  spread  Christianity  in  darkest 
Africa  and  give  happiness  to  five  noble  women, 
who  are  giving  their  lives  for  others,  should 
send  a  postal  money  order  to  Marie  T.  Martin, 
the  Reverend  Mother  Superior  of  the  Catholic 
Mission  of  Old  Calabar,  Southern  Nigeria. 

And  if  you  are  going  to  do  it,  as  they  say  in 
the  advertising  pages,  "Do  it  now!" 

At  Calabar  there  is  a  royal  prisoner,  the 
King  of  Benin.  He  is  not  an  agreeable  king 
like  His  Majesty  of  the  Cameroons,  but  a 
grossly  fat,  sensual-looking  young  man,  who, 
a  few  years  ago,  when  he  was  at  war  with  the 
English,  made  "ju  ju"  against  them  by 
sacrificing  three  hundred  maidens,  his  idea 
being  that  the  ju  ju  would  drive  the  English 
out  of  Benin.  It  was  poor  ju  ju,  for  it  drove 
the  young  man  himself  out  of  Benin,  and  now 
he  is  a  king  in  exile.  As  far  as  I  could  see, 
the  social  position  of  the  king  is  insecure,  and 

i66 


OLD  CALABAR 

certainly  in  Calabar  he  does  not  move  in  the 
first  circles.  One  afternoon,  when  the  four 
or  five  ladies  of  Calabar  and  Mr.  Bedwell,  the 
Acting  Commissioner,  and  the  officers  of  the 
W.  A.  F.  F.*s  were  at  the  clubhouse  having 
ice-drinks,  the  king  at  the  head  of  a  retinue  of 
cabinet  officers,  high  priests,  and  wives  bore 
down  upon  the  club-house  with  the  evident 
intention  of  inviting  himself  to  tea.  Person- 
ally, I  should  like  to  have  met  a  young  man 
who  could  murder  three  hundred  girls  and 
worry  over  it  so  little  that  he  had  not  lost  one 
of  his  three  hundred  pounds,  but  the  others 
were  considerably  annoyed  and  sent  an  A.  D. 
C.  to  tell  him  to  "Move  on!"  as  though  he 
were  an  organ-grinder,  or  a  performing  bear. 

"These  kings,"  exclaimed  a  subaltern  of 
the  W.  A.  F.  F.'s,  indignantly,  "are  trying  to 
push  in  everywhere!" 

When  we  departed  from  Calabar,  the  only 
thing  that  reconciled  me  to  leaving  it  and  its 
charming  people,  was  the  fact  that  when  the 
ship  moved  there  was  a  breeze.  While  at 
anchor  in  the  river  I  had  found  that  not  being 
able  to  breathe  by  day  or  to  sleep  by  night  in 

time  is  trying,  even  to  the  stoutest  constitution. 

167 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

One  of  the  married  ladies  of  Calabar,  her 
husband,  an  officer  of  the  W.  A.  F.  F.'s,  and 
the  captain  of  the  police  sailed  on  the  Nigeria 
"on  leave,"  and  all  Calabar  came  down  to  do 
them  honor.  There  was  the  commissioner's 
gig,  and  the  marine  captain's  gig,  and  the  police 
captain's  gig,  and  the  gig  from  "Matilda's," 
the  English  trading  house,  and  one  from  the 
Dutch  house  and  the  French  house,  and  each 
gig  was  manned  by  black  boys  in  beautiful 
uniforms  and  fezzes,  and  each  crew  fought  to 
tie  up  to  the  foot  of  the  accommodation  ladder. 
It  was  as  gay  as  a  regatta.  On  the  quarter- 
deck the  officers  drank  champagne,  in  the 
captain's  cabin  Hughes  treated  the  traders  to 
beer,  in  the  "square"  the  non-coms,  of  the 
W.  A.  F.  F.'s  drank  ale.  The  men  who  were 
going  away  on  leave  tried  not  to  look  too 
happy,  and  those  who  were  going  back  to  the 
shore  drank  deep  and  tried  not  to  appear  too 
carelessly  gay.  A  billet  on  the  West  Coast  is 
regarded  by  the  man  who  accepts  it  as  a  sort 
of  sporting  proposition,  as  a  game  of  three 
innings  of  nine  months  each,  during  which 
he  matches  his  health  against  the  Coast.  If 
he  lives  he  wins;    if  he  dies  the  Coast  wins. 

i6S 


OLD  CALABAR 

After  Calabar,  at  each  port  off  which  we 
anchored,  at  Ponny,  Focardos,  Lagos,  Accra, 
Cape  Coast  Castle,  and  Sekonni,  it  was  always 
the  same.  Always  there  came  over  the  side 
the  man  going  "Home,"  the  man  who  had 
fought  with  the  Coast  and  won.  He  was  as 
excited,  as  jubilant  as  a  prisoner  sentenced  to 
death  who  had  escaped  his  executioners. 
And  always  the  heartiest  in  their  congratu- 
lations were  the  men  who  were  left  behind,  his 
brother  officers,  or  his  fellow  traders,  the  men  of 
the  Sun  Hat  Brigade,  in  their  unofficial  uni- 
forms, in  shirtwaists,  broad  belts  from  which 
dangled  keys  and  a  whistle,  beautifully  polished 
tan  boots,  and  with  a  wand-like  whip  or  stick 
of  elephant  hide.  They  swarmed  the  decks  and 
overwhelmed  the  escaping  refugee  with  good 
wishes.  He  had  cheated  their  common  ene- 
my. By  merely  keeping  alive  he  had  achieved 
a  glorious  victory.  In  their  eyes  he  had  per- 
formed a  feat  of  endurance  like  swimming  the 
English  Channel.  They  crowded  to  congratu- 
late him  as  people  at  the  pit-mouth  congratu- 
late the  entombed  miner,  who,  after  many 
days  of  breathing  noisome  gases,  drinks  the 

pure  air.     Even  the  black  boys  seem  to  feel 

169 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

the  triumph  of  the  white  master,  and  their 
paddles  never  flashed  so  bravely,  and  their 
songs  never  rang  so  wildly,  as  when  they  were 
racing  him  away  from  the  brooding  Coast 
with  its  poisonous  vapors  toward  the  big 
white  ship  that  meant  health  and  home. 

Although  most  of  the  ports  we  saw  only 
from  across  a  mile  or  two  of  breakers,  they 
always  sent  us  something  of  interest.  Some- 
times all  the  male  passengers  came  on  board 
drunk.  With  the  miners  of  the  Gold  Coast 
and  the  "Palm  Oil  Ruffians"  it  used  to  be  a 
matter  of  etiquette  not  to  leave  the  Coast  in 
any  other  condition.  Not  so  to  celebrate 
your  escape  seemed  ungenerous  and  un- 
grateful. At  Sekondi  one  of  the  miners  from 
Ashanti  was  so  completely  drunk,  that  he  was 
swung  over  the  side,  tied  up  like  a  plum- 
pudding,  in  a  bag. 

When  he  emerged  from  the  bag  his  ex- 
pression of  polite  inquiry  was  one  with  which 
all  could  sympathize.  To  lose  consciousness 
on  the  veranda  of  a  cafe,  and  awake  with  a 
bump  on  the  deck  of  a  steamer  many  miles  at 
sea,  must  strengthen  one's  belief  in  magic 

carpets.  , 

X70 


OLD  CALABAR 

Another  entertainment  for  the  white  pas- 
sengers was  when  the  boat  boys  fought  for  the 
black  passengers  as  they  were  lowered  in  the 
mammy-chair.  As  a  rule,  in  the  boats  from 
shore,  there  were  twelve  boys  to  paddle  and 
three  or  four  extra  men  to  handle  and  unhook 
the  mammy-chair  and  the  luggage.  While 
the  boys  with  the  paddles  manoeuvred  to  bring 
their  boat  next  to  the  ship's  side,  the  extra 
boys  tried  to  pull  their  rivals  overboard,  drag- 
ging their  hands  from  ropes  and  gunwales, 
and  beating  them  with  paddles.  They  did 
this  while  every  second  the  boat  under  them 
was  spinning  in  the  air  or  diving  ten  feet  into 
the  hollow  of  the  waves,  and  trying  to  smash 
itself  and  every  other  boat  into  driftwood. 
From  the  deck  the  second  officer  would  swing 
a  mammy-chair  over  the  side  with  the  idea  of 
dropping  it  into  one  of  these  boats.  But  be- 
fore the  chair  could  be  lowered,  a  rival  boat 
would  shove  the  first  one  away,  and  with  a 
third  boat  would  be  fighting  for  its  place. 
Meanwhile,  high  above  the  angry  sea,  the 
chair  and  its  cargo  of  black  women  would  be 
twirling    like    a    weathercock    and    banging 

against  the  ship's  side.     The  mammies  were 

171 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

too  terrified  to  scream,  but  the  ship's  officers 
yelled  and  swore,  the  boat's  crews  shrieked, 
and  the  black  babies  howled.  Each  baby 
was  strapped  between  the  shoulders  of  the 
mother.  A  mammy-chair  is  like  one  of  those 
two-seated  swings  in  which  people  sit  facing 
one  another.  If  to  the  shoulders  of  each 
person  in  the  swing  was  tied  a  baby,  it  is 
obvious  that  should  the  swing  bump  into 
anything,  the  baby  would  get  the  worst  of  it. 
That  is  what  happened  in  the  mammy-chair. 
Every  time  the  chair  spun  around,  the  head 
of  a  baby  would  come  "crack!"  against  the 
ship's  side.  So  the  babies  howled,  and  no 
one  of  the  ship's  passengers,  crowded  six 
deep  along  the  rail,  blamed  them.  The  skull 
of  the  Ethiopian  may  be  hard,  but  it  is  most 
unfair  to  be  swathed  like  a  mummy  so  that 
you  can  neither  kick  nor  strike  back,  and 
then  have  your  head  battered  against  a  five- 
thousand-ton  ship. 

How  the  boys  who  paddled  the  shore  boats 
live  long  enough  to  learn  how  to  handle  them 
is  a  great  puzzle.  We  were  told  that  the 
method  was  to  take  out  one  green  boy  with  a 
crew   of  eleven   experts.     But   how   did   the 


Tr^^^jf^^^^^^^ 

W  i 

1  > 

L-*" 

^i^^m 

U^l^-ii 

kmli. 

The  Kroo  Boys  Sit,  Not  On  the  Thwarts,  but  On  the  Gunwales, 
as  a  Woman  Rides  a  Side  Saddle. 


OLD  CALABAR 

original  eleven  become  experts?  At  Accra, 
where  the  waves  are  very  high  and  rough,  are 
the  best  boat  boys  on  the  coast.  We  watched 
the  Custom  House  boat  fight  her  way  across 
the  two  miles  of  surf  to  the  shore.  The  fight 
lasted  two  hours.  It  was  as  thrilling  as 
watching  a  man  cross  Niagara  Falls  on  a 
tight-rope.  The  greater  part  of  the  two  hours 
the  boat  stood  straight  in  the  air,  as  though 
it  meant  to  shake  the  crew  into  the  sea,  and 
the  rest  of  the  time  it  ran  between  walls  of 
water  ten  feet  high  and  was  entirely  lost  to 
sight.  Two  things  about  the  paddling  on  the 
West  Coast  make  it  peculiar;  the  boys  sit,  not 
on  the  thwarts,  but  on  the  gunwales,  as  a 
woman  rides  a  side-saddle,  and  in  many  parts 
of  the  coast  the  boys  use  paddles  shaped  like 
a  fork  or  a  trident.  One  asks  how,  sitting  as 
they  do,  they  are  able  to  brace  themselves, 
and  how  with  their  forked  paddles  they  ob- 
tained sufficient  resistance.  A  coaster's  ex- 
planation of  the  split  paddle  was  that  the 
boys  did  not  want  any  more  resistance  than 
they  could  prevent. 

There  is  no  more  royal  manner  of  progress 
than  when  one  of  these  boats  lifts  you  over 

173 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

the  waves,  with  the  boys  chanting  some  wild 
chorus,  with  their  bare  bodies  glistening,  their 
teeth  and  eyes  shining,  the  splendid  muscles 
straining,  and  the  dripping  paddles  flashing 
like  twelve  mirrors. 

Some  of  the  chiefs  have  canoes  of  as  much 
as  sixty  men-power,  and  when  these  men 
sing,  and  their  bodies  and  voices  are  in  unison, 
a  war  canoe  seems  the  only  means  of  locomo- 
tion, and  a  sixty-horse-power  racing  car 
becomes  a  vehicle  suited  only  to  the  newly 
rich. 

I  knew  I  had  left  the  West  Coast  when,  the 
very  night  we  sailed  from  Sierra  Leone,  for 
greater  comfort,  I  reached  for  a  linen  bed- 
spread that  during  four  stifling,  reeking 
weeks  had  lain  undisturbed  at  the  foot  of  the 
berth.  During  that  time  I  had  hated  it  as 
a  monstrous  thing;  as  something  as  hot  and 
heavy  as  a  red  flannel  blanket,  as  a  buff^alo 
robe.  And  when,  on  the  following  night,  I 
found  the  wind-screen  was  not  in  the  air  port, 
and  that,  nevertheless,  I  still  was  alive,  I 
knew  we  had  passed  out  of  reach  of  the 
Equator,  and  that  all  that  followed  would 

be   as   conventional   as   the   "trippers"   who 

174 


OLD  CALABAR 

joined  us  at  the  Canary  Isles;  and  as  familiar 
as  the  low,  gray  skies,  the  green,  rain-soaked 
hills,  and  the  complaining  Channel  gulls 
that  convoyed  us  into  Plymouth  Harbor. 


X7S 


VII 

ALONG  THE    EAST   COAST 

WERE  a  man  picked  up  on  a  flying  carpet 
and  dropped  without  warning  into 
Lorenzo  Marquez,  he  might  guess  for  a  day 
before  he  could  make  up  his  mind  where  he 
was,  or  determine  to  which  nation  the  place 
belonged. 

If  he  argued  from  the  adobe  houses  with 
red-tiled  roofs  and  walls  of  cobalt  blue,  the 
palms,  and  the  yellow  custom-house,  he  might 
think  he  was  in  Santiago;  the  Indian  mer- 
chants in  velvet  and  gold  embroideries  seated 
in  deep,  dark  shops  which  breathe  out  dry, 
pungent  odors,  might  take  him  back  to  Bom- 
bay; the  Soudanese  and  Egyptians  in  long 
blue  night-gowns  and  freshly  ironed  fezzes 
would  remind  him  of  Cairo;  the  dwarfish 
Portuguese  soldiers,  of  Madeira,  Lisbon,  and 
Madrid,  and  the  black,  bare-legged  policemen 

in  khaki  with  great  numerals  on  their  chests, 

176 


ALONG  THE  EAST  COAST 

of  Benin,  Sierra  Leone,  or  Zanzibar.  After 
he  had  noted  these  and  the  German,  French, 
and  EngHsh  merchants  in  white  duck,  and  the 
Dutch  man-of-warsmen,  who  look  Hke  ship's 
stewards,  the  French  marines  in  coal-scuttle 
helmets,  the  British  Jack-tars  in  their  bare 
feet,  and  the  native  Kaffir  women,  each 
wrapped  in  a  single,  gorgeous  shawl  with 
a  black  baby  peering  from  beneath  her 
shoulder-blades,  he  would  decide,  by  using 
the  deductive  methods  of  Sherlock  Holmes, 
that  he  was  in  the  Midway  of  the  Chicago 
Fair. 

Several  hundred  years  ago  Da  Gama  sailed 
into  Delagoa  Bay  and  founded  the  town  of 
Lorenzo  Marquez,  and  since  that  time  the 
Portuguese  have  always  felt  that  it  is  only  due 
to  him  and  to  themselves  to  remain  there. 
They  have  great  pride  of  race,  and  they  like 
the  fact  that  they  possess  and  govern  a  colony. 
So,  up  to  the  present  time,  in  spite  of  many 
temptations  to  dispose  of  it,  they  have  made 
the  ownership  of  Delagoa  Bay  an  article  of 
their  national  religion.  But  their  national  re- 
ligion does  not  require  of  them  to  improve 

their  property.     And  to-day  it  is  much  as  it 

177 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

was  when  the  sails  of  Da  Gama*s  fleet  first 
stirred  its  poisonous  vapors. 

The  harbor  itself  is  an  excellent  one  and  the 
bay  is  twenty-two  miles  along,  but  there  is  only 
one  landing-pier,  and  that  such  a  pier  as 
would  be  considered  inconsistent  with  the 
dignity  of  the  Larchmont  Yacht  Club.  To 
the  town  itself  Portugal  has  been  content  to 
contribute  as  her  share  the  gatherers  of  taxes, 
collectors  of  customs  and  dispensers  of  official 
seals.  She  is  indifferent  to  the  fact  that  the 
bulk  of  general  merchandise,  wine,  and  ma- 
chinery that  enter  her  port  is  brought  there  by 
foreigners.  She  only  demands  that  they  buy 
her  stamps.  Her  importance  in  her  own 
colony  is  that  of  a  toll-gate  at  the  entrance  of 
a  great  city. 

Lorenzo  Marquez  is  not  a  spot  which  one 
would  select  for  a  home.  When  I  was  first 
there,  the  deaths  from  fever  were  averaging 
fifteen  a  day,  and  men  who  dined  at  the  club 
one  evening  were  buried  hurriedly  before  mid- 
night, and  when  I  returned  in  the  winter 
months,  the  fever  had  abated,  but  on  the  night 
we  arrived  twenty  men  were  robbed.     The 

fact  that  we  complained  to  the  police  about 

178 


ALONG  THE  EAST  COAST 

one  of  the  twenty  robberies  struck  the  com- 
mandant as  an  act  of  surprising  and  unusual 
interest.  We  gathered  from  his  manner  that 
the  citizens  of  Lorenzo  Marquez  look  upon 
being  robbed  as  a  matter  too  personal  and 
selfish  with  which  to  trouble  the  police.  It 
was  perhaps  credulous  of  us,  as  our  hotel  was 
liberally  labelled  with  notices  warning  its 
patrons  that  "Owing  to  numerous  robberies 
in  this  hotel,  our  guests  will  please  lock  their 
doors."  This  was  one  of  three  hotels  owned 
by  the  same  man.  One  of  the  others  had  been 
described  to  us  as  the  "tough"  hotel,  and  at 
the  other,  a  few  weeks  previous,  a  friend  had 
found  a  puff-adder  barring  his  bedroom  door. 
The  choice  was  somewhat  difficult. 

On  her  way  from  Lorenzo  Marquez  to 
Beira  our  ship,  the  Kanzlar,  kept  close  to  the 
shore,  and  showed  us  low-lying  banks  of 
yellow  sand  and  coarse  green  bushes.  There 
was  none  of  the  majesty  of  outline  which 
reaches  from  Table  Bay  to  Durban,  none  of 
the  blue  mountains  of  the  Colony,  nor  the 
deeply  wooded  table-lands  and  great  inlets  of 
Kaffraria.     The  rocks  which  stretch  along  the 

southern  coast  and  against  which  the  waves 

179 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

break  with  a  report  like  the  bursting  of  a 
lyddite  shell,  had  disappeared,  and  along 
Gazaland  and  the  Portuguese  territory  only 
swamps  and  barren  sand-hills  accompanied 
us  in  a  monotonous  yellow  line.  From  the 
bay  we  saw  Beira  as  a  long  crescent  of  red- 
roofed  houses,  many  of  them  of  four  stories 
with  verandas  running  around  each  story,  like 
those  of  the  summer  hotels  along  the  Jersey 
coast.  It  is  a  town  built  upon  the  sands,  with 
a  low  stone  breakwater,  but  without  a  pier  or 
jetty,  the  lack  of  which  gives  it  a  temporary, 
casual  air  as  though  it  were  more  a  summer 
resort  than  the  one  port  of  entry  for  all  Rho- 
desia. It  suggested  Coney  Island  to  one,  and 
to  others  Asbury  Park  and  the  board-walk  at 
Atlantic  City.  When  we  found  that  in  spite 
of  her  Portuguese  flags  and  naked  blacks, 
Beira  reminded  us  of  nothing  except  an  Amer- 
ican summer-resort,  we  set  to  discovering  why 
this  should  be,  and  decided  it  was  because, 
after  the  red  dust  of  the  Colony  and  the 
Transvaal,  we  saw  again  stretches  of  white 
sand,  and  instead  of  corrugated  zinc,  flimsy 
houses  of  wood,  which  you  felt  were  only 
opened  for  the  summer  season  and  which  for 

iSo 


ALONG  THE  EAST  COAST 

the  rest  of  the  year  remained  boarded  up 
against  driven  sands  and  equinoctial  gales. 
Beira  need  only  to  have  added  to  her  "Sea- 
View"  and  "Beach"  hotels,  a  few  bathing- 
suits  drying  on  a  clothes-line,  a  tin-type  ar- 
tist, and  a  merry-go-round,  to  make  us 
feel  perfectly  at  home.  Beira  being  the  port 
on  the  Indian  Ocean  which  feeds  Mashona- 
land  and  Matabeleland  and  the  English  set- 
lers  in  and  around  Buluwayo  and  Salisbury, 
English  influence  has  proclaimed  itself  there 
in  many  ways.  When  we  touched,  which  was 
when  the  British  soldiers  were  moving  up  to 
Rhodesia,  the  place,  in  comparison  with  Lo- 
renzo Marquez,  was  brisk,  busy,  and  clean. 
Although  both  are  ostensibly  Portuguese, 
Beira  is  to  Lorenzo  Marquez  what  the  clean- 
est street  of  Greenwich  Village,  of  New  York 
City,  is  to  "Hell's  Kitchen"  and  the  Chinese 
Quarter.  The  houses  were  well  swept  and 
cool,  the  shops  were  alluring,  the  streets  were 
of  clean  shifting  white  sand,  and  the  sidewalks, 
of  gray  cement,  were  as  well  kept  as  a  Phila- 
delphia doorstep.  The  most  curious  feature 
of  Beira  is  her  private  tram-car  system.  These 
cars  run  on  tiny  tracks  which  rise  out  of  the 

i8i 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

sand  and  extend  from  one  end  of  the  town 
to  the  other,  with  branch  Hnes  running  into 
the  yards  of  shops  and  private  houses.  The 
motive  power  for  these  cars  is  supplied  by 
black  boys  who  run  behind  and  push  them. 
Their  trucks  are  about  half  as  large  as  those 
on  the  hand-cars  we  see  flying  along  our  rail- 
road tracks  at  home,  worked  by  gangs  of 
Italian  laborers.  On  some  of  the  trucks  there 
is  only  a  bench,  others  are  shaded  by  awn- 
ings, and  a  few  have  carriage-lamps  and 
cushioned  seats  and  carpets.  Each  of  them 
is  a  private  conveyance;  there  is  not  one 
which  can  be  hired  by  the  public.  When  a 
merchant  wishes  to  go  down  town  to  the  port, 
his  black  boys  carry  his  private  tram-car  from 
his  garden  and  settle  it  on  the  rails,  the  mer- 
chant seats  himself,  and  the  boys  push  him 
and  his  baby-carriage  to  whatever  part  of 
the  city  he  wishes  to  go.  When  his  wife  is 
out  shopping  and  stops  at  a  store  the  boys 
lift  her  car  into  the  sand  in  order  to  make  a 
clear  track  for  any  other  car  which  may  be 
coming  behind  them.  One  would  naturally 
suppose  that  with  the  tracks  and  switch- 
boards and  sidings  already  laid,  the  next  step 

182 


Going  Visiting  in  Her  Private  Tram-car  at  Beira. 


ALONG  THE  EAST  COAST 

would  be  to  place  cars  upon  them  for  the 
convenience  of  the  public,  but  this  is  not  the 
case,  and  the  tracks  through  the  city  are 
jealously  reserved  for  the  individuals  who  tax 
themselves  five  pounds  a  year  to  extend  them 
and  to  keep  them  in  repair.  After  the  sleds 
on  the  island  of  Madeira  these  private  street- 
cars of  Beira  struck  me  as  being  the  most 
curious  form  of  conveyance  I  had  ever  seen. 

Beira  was  occupied  by  the  Companhia  de 
Mozambique  with  the  idea  of  feeding  Salis- 
bury and  Buluwayo  from  the  north,  and  draw- 
ing away  some  of  the  trade  which  at  that 
time  was  monopolized  by  the  merchants  of 
Cape  Town  and  Durban.  But  the  tse-tse  fly 
belt  lay  between  Beira  on  the  coast  and  the 
boundary  of  the  Chartered  Company's  pos- 
sessions, and  as  neither  oxen  nor  mules  could 
live  to  cross  this,  it  was  necessary,  in  order  to 
compete  with  the  Cape-Buluwayo  line,  to 
build  a  railroad  through  the  swamp  and  jun- 
gle. This  road  is  now  in  operation.  It  is 
two  hundred  and  twenty  miles  in  length,  and 
in  the  brief  period  of  two  months,  during  the 
long    course    of    its    progress    through     the 

marshes,  two  hundred  of  the  men  working 

183 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

on  it  died  of  fever.     Some  years  ago,  during 

a  boundary  dispute  between  the  Portuguese 

and   the   Chartered   Company,   there   was   a 

clash  between  the  Portuguese  soldiers  and  the 

British  South  African  police.     How  this  was 

settled    and    the    honor    of  the    Portuguese 

officials  satisfied,  Kipling  has  told  us  in  the 

delightful  tale  of  "Judson  and  the  Empire.'* 

It  was  off  Beira  that  Judson  fished  up  a  buoy 

and  anchored  it  over  a  sand-bar  upon  which 

he  enticed  the  Portuguese  gunboat.     A  week 

before  we  touched  at  Beira,  the  Portuguese 

had   rearranged   all   the   harbor  buoys,   but, 

after  the  casual  habits  of  their  race,  had  made 

no  mention  of  the  fact.     The  result  was  that 

the   Kanzlar   was   hung   up   for   twenty-four 

hours.     We    tried    to    comfort   ourselves   by 

thinking  that  we  were  undoubtedly  occupying 

the  same  mud-bank  which  had  been  used  by 

the  strategic  Judson  to  further  the  course  of 

empire. 

The  Kanzlar  could  not  cross  the  bar  to  go 

to  Chinde,  so  the  Adjutanty  which  belongs  to 

the  same  line  and  which  was  created  for  these 

shallow  waters,  came  to  the  Kanzlar^  bringing 

Chinde  with  her.     She  brought  every  white 

184 


ALONG  THE  EAST  COAST 

man  in  the  port,  and  those  who  could  not 
come  on  board  our  ship  remained  contents 
cdly  on  the  Adjutant^  clinging  to  her  rail  as 
she  alternately  sank  below,  or  was  tossed  high 
above  us.  For  three  hours  they  smiled  with 
satisfaction  as  though  they  felt  that  to  have 
escaped  from  Chinde,  for  even  that  brief  time, 
was  sufficient  recompense  for  a  thorough 
ducking  and  the  pains  of  sea-sickness.  On 
the  bridge  of  the  Adjutant,  in  white  duck  and 
pith  helmets,  were  the  only  respectable  mem- 
bers of  Chinde  society.  We  knew  that  they 
were  the  only  respectable  members  of  Chinde 
society,  because  they  told  us  so  themselves. 
On  her  lower  deck  she  brought  two  French 
explorers,  fully  dressed  for  the  part  as  Tar- 
tarin  of  Tarascon  might  have  dressed  it  in 
white  havelocks  and  gaiters  buckled  up  to 
the  thighs,  and  clasping  express  rifles  in  new 
leather  cases.  From  her  engine-room  came 
stokers  from  Egypt,  and  from  her  forward 
deck  Malays  in  fresh  white  linen,  Moham- 
medans in  fez  and  turban,  Portuguese  offi- 
cials, chiefly  in  decorations,  Indian  coolies  and 
Zanzibari  boys,  very  black  and  very  beautiful, 
who  wound  and  unwound  long  blue  strips  of 

i8s 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

cotton  about  their  shoulders,  or  ears,  or 
thighs  as  the  heat,  or  the  nature  of  the  work 
of  unloading  required.  Among  these  strange 
peoples  were  goats,  as  delicately  colored  as  a 
meerschaum  pipe,  and  with  the  horns  of  our 
red  deer,  strange  white  oxen  with  humps  be- 
hind the  shoulders,  those  that  are  exhibited 
in  cages  at  home  as  "sacred  buffalo,'*  but 
which  here  are  only  patient  beasts  of  burden, 
and  gray  monkeys,  wildcats,  snakes  and  croco- 
diles in  cages  addressed  to  "  Hagenbeck, 
Hamburg."  The  freight  was  no  less  curious; 
assegais  in  bundles,  horns  stretching  for  three 
feet  from  point  to  point,  or  rising  straight, 
like  poignards;  skins,  ground-nuts,  rubber, 
and  heavy  blocks  of  bees-wax  wrapped  in 
coarse  brown  sacking,  and  which  in  time  will 
burn  before  the  altars  of  Roman  Catholic 
churches  in  Italy,  Spain,  and  France. 

People  of  the  ** Bromide"  class  who  run 
across  a  friend  from  their  own  city  in  Paris 
will  say,  "Well,  to  think  of  meeting  you  here. 
How  small  the  world  is  after  all ! "  If  they  wish 
a  better  proof  of  how  really  small  it  is,  how 
closely  it  is  knit  together,  how  the  existence 
of  one   canning-house   in   Chicago   supports 

i86 


ALONG  THE  EAST  COAST 

twenty  stores  in  Durban,  they  must  follow, 
not  the  missionary  or  the  explorers,  not  the 
punitive  expeditions,  but  the  man  who  wishes 
to  buy,  and  the  man  who  brings  something 
to  sell.  Trade  is  what  has  brought  the 
latitudes  together  and  made  the  world  the 
small  department  store  it  is,  and  forced  one 
part  of  it  to  know  and  to  depend  upon  the 
other. 

The  explorer  tells  you,  "  I  was  the  first  man 
to  climb  Kilamajaro."  "I  was  the  first  to 
cut  a  path  from  the  shores  of  Lake  Nyassa 
into  the  Congo  Basin."  He  even  lectures 
about  it,  in  front  of  a  wet  sheet  in  the  light  of 
a  stereopticon,  and  because  he  has  added 
some  miles  of  territory  to  the  known  world, 
people  buy  his  books  and  learned  societies 
place  initials  after  his  distinguished  name. 
But  before  his  grandfather  was  born  and  long 
before  he  ever  disturbed  the  waters  of  Nyassa 
the  Phoenicians  and  Arabs  and  Portuguese 
and  men  of  his  own  time  and  race  had  been 
there  before  him  to  buy  ivory,  both  white  and 
black,  to  exchange  beads  and  brass  bars  and 
shaving-mirrors  for  the    tusks  of  elephants, 

raw  gold,  copra,  rubber,  and  the  feathers  of 

187 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

the  ostrich.  Statesmen  will  modestly  say  that 
a  study  of  the  map  showed  them  how  the 
course  of  empire  must  take  its  way  into  this 
or  that  undiscovered  wilderness,  and  that 
in  consequence,  at  their  direction,  armies 
marched  to  open  these  tracts  which  but  for 
their  prescience  would  have  remained  a  desert. 
But  that  was  not  the  real  reason.  A  woman 
wanted  three  feathers  to  wear  at  Buckingham 
Palace,  and  to  oblige  her  a  few  unimagina- 
tive traders,  backed  by  a  man  who  owned  a 
tramp  steamer,  opened  up  the  East  Coast  of 
Africa;  another  wanted  a  sealskin  sacque,  and 
fleets  of  ships  faced  floating  ice  under  the 
Northern  Lights.  The  bees  of  the  Shire 
Riverway  help  to  illuminate  the  cathedrals  of 
St.  Peters  and  Notre  Dame,  and  back  of 
Mozambique  thousands  of  rubber-trees  are 
being  planted  to-day,  because,  at  the  other 
end  of  the  globe,  people  want  tires  for  their 
automobiles;  and  because  the  fashionable  or- 
nament of  the  natives  of  Swaziland  is,  for  no 
reason,  no  longer  blue-glass  beads,  manu- 
facturers of  beads  in  Switzerland  and  Italy 
find  themselves  out  of  pocket  by  some  thou- 
sands and  thousands  of  pounds. 

i8S 


ALONG  THE  EAST  COAST 

The  traders  who  were  making  the  world 
smaller  by  bringing  cotton  prints  to  Chinde 
to  cover  her  black  nakedness,  her  British 
Majesty's  consul  at  that  port,  and  the  boy 
lieutenant  of  the  paddle-wheeled  gunboat 
which  patrols  the  Zambesi  River,  were  the 
gentlemen  who  informed  me  that  they  were 
the  only  respectable  members  of  Chinde  so- 
ciety. They  came  over  the  side  with  the 
gratitude  of  sailors  whom  the  Kanzlar  might 
have  picked  up  from  a  desert  island,  where  they 
had  been  marooned  and  left  to  rot.  They 
observed  the  gilded  glory  of  the  Kanzlar 
smoking-room,  its  mirrors  and  marble-topped 
tables,  with  the  satisfaction  and  awe  of  the 
California  miner,  who  found  all  the  elegance 
of  civilization  in  the  red  plush  of  a  Broadway 
omnibus.  The  boy-commander  of  the  gun- 
boat gazed  at  white  women  in  the  saloon  with 
fascinated  admiration. 

"I  have  never,"  he  declared,  breathlessly, 

"I  have  never  seen  so  many  beautiful  women 

in  one  place  at  the  same  time!     I'd  forgotten 

that  there  were  so  many  white  people  in  the 

world." 

"  If  I  stay  on  board  this  ship  another  min- 
189 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

ute  I  shall  go  home,"  said  Her  Majesty's 
consul,  firmly.  "You  will  have  to  hold  me. 
It's  coming  over  me — I  feel  it  coming.  I 
shall  never  have  the  strength  to  go  back." 
He  appealed  to  the  sympathetic  lieutenant. 
"Let's  desert  together,"  he  begged. 

In  the  swamps  of  the  East  Coast  the  white 
exiles  lay  aside  the  cloaks  and  masks  of 
crowded  cities.  They  do  not  try  to  conceal 
their  feelings,  their  vices,  or  their  longings. 
They  talk  to  the  first  white  stranger  they  meet 
of  things  which  in  the  great  cities  a  man  con- 
ceals even  from  his  room-mate,  and  men  they 
would  not  care  to  know,  and  whom  they 
would  never  meet  in  the  fixed  social  pathways 
of  civilization,  they  take  to  their  hearts  as 
friends.  They  are  too  few  to  be  particular, 
they  have  no  choice,  and  they  ask  no  ques- 
tions. It  is  enough  that  the  white  man,  like 
themselves,  is  condemned  to  exile.  They  do 
not  try  to  find  solace  in  the  thought  that  they 
are  the  "  foretrekkers "  of  civilization,  or  take 
credit  to  themselves  because  they  are  the  path- 
finders and  the  pioneers  who  bear  the  heat 
and  burden  of  the  day.     They  are  sorry  for 

themselves,  because  they  know,  more  keenly 

190 


One-half  of  the  Street  Cleaning  Department  of  Mozambique. 


ALONG  THE  EAST  COAST 

than  any  outsider  can  know,  how  good  is  the 
life  they  have  given  up,  and  how  hard  is  the 
one  they  follow,  but  they  do  not  ask  anyone 
else  to  be  sorry.  They  would  be  very  much 
surprised  if  they  thought  you  saw  in  their 
struggle  against  native  and  Portuguese  bar- 
barism, fever,  and  savage  tribes,  a  life  of 
great  good  and  value,  full  of  self-renunciation, 
heroism,  and  self-sacrifice. 

On  the  day  they  boarded  the  Kanzlar  the 
pains  of  nostalgia  were  sweeping  over  the 
respectable  members  of  Chinde  society  like 
waves  of  nausea,  and  tearing  them.  With  a 
grim  appreciation  of  their  own  condition,  they 
smiled  mockingly  at  the  ladies  on  the  quarter- 
deck, as  you  have  seen  prisoners  grin  through 
the  bars;  they  were  even  boisterous  and  gay, 
but  their  gayety  was  that  of  children  at  recess, 
who  know  that  when  the  bell  rings  they  are 
going  back  to  the  desk. 

A  little  English  boy  ran  through  the  smok- 
ing-room, and  they  fell  upon  him,  and  quar- 
relled for  the  privilege  of  holding  him  on  their 
knees.  He  was  a  shy,  coquettish  little  Eng- 
lish boy,  and  the  boisterous,  noisy  men  did 

not  appeal  to  him.     To  them  he  meant  home 

191 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

and  family  and  the  old  nursery,  papered  with 
colored  pictures  from  the  Christmas  Graphic, 
His  stout,  bare  legs  and  tangled  curls  and 
sailor's  hat,  with  "  H.  M.  S.  Mars"  across  it, 
meant  all  that  was  clean  and  sweet-smelling 
in  their  past  lives. 

"I'll  arrest  you  for  a  deserter,"  said  the 
lieutenant  of  the  gunboat.  "I'll  make  the 
consul  send  you  back  to  the  Mars."  He  held 
the  boy  on  his  knee  fearfully,  handling  him 
as  though  he  were  some  delicate  and  precious 
treasure  that  might  break  if  he  dropped  it. 

The  agent  of  the  Oceanic  Development 
Company,  Limited,  whose  business  in  life  is 
to  drive  savage  Angonis  out  of  the  jungle, 
where  he  hopes  in  time  to  see  the  busy  haunts 
of  trade,  begged  for  the  boy  with  eloquent 
pleading. 

"You've  had  the  kiddie  long  enough  now," 
he  urged.  "Let  me  have  him.  Come  here, 
Mr.  Mars,  ^nd  sit  beside  me,  and  I'll  give 
you  fizzy  water — like  lemon-squash,  only 
nicer."  He  held  out  a  wet  bottle  of  cham- 
pagne alluringly. 

"No,   he  is  coming  to  his  consul,"   that 

youth  declared.     "He's  coming  to  his  consul 

Z92 


ALONG  THE  EAST  COAST 

for  protection.  You  arc  not  fit  characters  to 
associate  with  an  innocent  child.  Come  to 
me,  little  boy,  and  do  not  listen  to  those  de- 
graded persons."  So  the  "innocent  child" 
seated  himself  between  the  consul  and  the 
chartered  trader,  and  they  patted  his  fat 
calves  and  red  curls  and  took  his  minute  hands 
in  their  tanned  fists,  eying  him  hungrily,  like 
two  cannibals.  But  the  little  boy  was  quite 
unconscious  and  inconsiderate  of  their  hun- 
ger, and,  with  the  cruelty  of  children,  pulled 
himself  free  and  ran  away. 

"He  was  such  a  nice  little  kiddie,"  they 
said,  apologetically,  as  though  they  felt  they 
had  been  caught  in  some  act  of  weakness. 

"I  haven't  got  a  card  with  me;  I  haven't 
needed  one  for  two  years,"  said  the  lieutenant, 
genially.  "But  fancy  your  knowing  Sparks! 
He  has  the  next  station  to  mine;  I'm  at  one 
end  of  the  Shire  River  and  he's  at  the  other; 
he  patrols  from  Fort  Johnson  up  to  the  top 
of  the  lake.  I  suppose  you've  heard  him  play 
the  banjo,  haven't  you  ?  That's  where  we  hit 
it  off — we're  both  terribly  keen  about  the 
banjo.     I  suppose  if  it  wasn't  for  my  banjo, 

I'd  go  quite  off  my  head  down  here.     I  know 

193 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

Sparks  would.  You  see,  I  have  these  chaps 
at  Chindc  to  talk  to,  and  up  at  Tetc  there's 
the  Portuguese  governor,  but  Sparks  has 
only  six  white  men  scattered  along  Nyassa  for 
three  hundred  miles.'* 

I  had  heard  of  Sparks  and  the  six  white 
men.  They  grew  so  lonely  that  they  agreed 
to  meet  once  a  month  at  some  central  station 
and  spend  the  night  together,  and  they  in- 
vited Sparks  to  attend  the  second  meeting. 
But  when  he  arrived  he  found  that  they  had 
organized  a  morphine  club,  and  the  only  six 
white  men  on  Lake  Nyassa  were  sitting  around 
a  table  with  their  sleeves  rolled  up,  giving 
themselves  injections.  Sparks  told  them  it 
was  a  "disgusting  practice,"  and  put  back  to 
his  gunboat.  I  recalled  the  story  to  the  lieu- 
tenant, and  he  laughed  mournfully. 

"Yes,"  he  said;  "and  what's  worse  is  that 
we're  here  for  two  years  more,  with  all  this 
fighting  going  on  at  the  Cape  and  in  China. 
Still,  we  have  our  banjos,  and  the  papers  are 
only  six  weeks  old,  and  the  steamer  stops  once 
every  month." 

Fortunately  there  were  many  bags  of  bees- 
wax to  come  over  the  side,  so  we  had  time  in 

194 


3 
O 

W 

S 

o 

en 

u 


ALONG  THE  EAST  COAST 

which  to  give  the  exiles  the  news  of  the  out- 
side world,  and  they  told  us  of  their  present 
and  past  lives:  of  how  one  as  an  American 
filibuster  had  furnished  coal  to  the  Chinese 
Navy;  how  another  had  sold  "ready  to  wear" 
clothes  in  a  New  York  department  store,  and 
another  had  been  attache  at  Madrid,  and  an- 
other in  charge  of  the  forward  guns  of  a  great 
battle-ship.  We  exchanged  addresses  and 
agreed  upon  the  restaurant  where  we  would 
meet  two  years  hence  to  celebrate  their  free- 
dom, and  we  emptied  many  bottles  of  iced- 
beer,  and  the  fact  that  it  was  iced  seemed  to 
affect  the  exiles  more  than  the  fact  that  it  was 
beer. 

But  at  last  the  ship's  whistle  blew  with 
raucous  persistence.  It  was  final  and  heart- 
less. It  rang  down  the  curtain  on  the  mirage 
which  once  a  month  comes  to  mock  Chinde 
with  memories  of  English  villages,  of  well- 
kept  lawns  melting  into  the  Thames,  of  Lon- 
don asphalt  and  flashing  hansoms.  With  a 
jangling  of  bells  in  the  engine-room  the  mir- 
age disappeared,  and  in  five  minutes  to  the 
exiles  of  Chinde  the  Kanzlar  became  a  gray  tub 
with  a  pennant  of  smoke  on  the  horizon  line. 

I9S 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

I  have  known  some  men  for  many  years, 
smoked  and  talked  with  them  until  improper 
hours  of  the  morning,  known  them  well  enough 
to  borrow  their  money,  even  their  razors,  and 
parted  from  them  with  never  a  pang.  But 
when  our  ship  abandoned  those  boys  to  the 
unclean  land  behind  them,  I  could  see  them 
only  in  a  blurred  and  misty  group.  We 
raised  our  hats  to  them  and  tried  to  cheer, 
but  it  was  more  of  a  salute  than  a  cheer.  I 
had  never  seen  them  before,  I  shall  never  meet 
them  again — we  had  just  burned  signals  as 
our  ships  passed  in  the  night — and  yet,  I 
must  always  consider  among  the  friends  I 
have  lost,  those  white-clad  youths  who  are 
making  the  ways  straight  for  others  through 
the  dripping  jungles  of  the  Zambesi,  **the 
only  respectable  members  of  Chinde  So- 
ciety.  * 


•Note — I  did  not  lose  the  white-clad  youths.  The  lieutenant 
now  is  the  commander  of  a  cruiser,  and  the  consul,  a  consul-general; 
and  they  write  me  that  the  editor  of  the  Chinde  newspaper,  on  his 
editorial  page,  has  complained  that  he,  also,  should  be  included 
among  the  respectable  members  of  Chinde  Society.  He  claims  his 
absence  at  Tete,  at  the  time  of  the  visit  of  the  Kanzlar,  alone  pre- 
vented his  social  position  being  publicly  recognized.  That  justice 
may  be  done,  he,  now,  is  officially,  though  tardily,  created  a  member 
of  Chinde's  respectable  society.  R.  H.  D. 

196 


ALONG  THE  EAST  COAST 

The  profession  of  the  slave-trader,  unless  it 
be  that  of  his  contemporary,  the  pirate  preying 
under  his  black  flag,  is  the  one  which  holds 
you  with  the  most  grewsome  and  fascinating 
interest.  Its  inhumanity,  its  legends  of  pred- 
atory expeditions  into  unknown  jungles  of 
Africa,  the  long  return  marches  to  the  Coast, 
the  captured  blacks  who  fall  dead  in  the  trail, 
the  dead  pulling  down  with  their  chains  those 
who  still  live,  the  stifling  holds  of  the  slave- 
ships,  the  swift  flights  before  pursuing  ships- 
of-war,  the  casting  away,  when  too  closely 
chased,  of  the  ship's  cargo,  and  the  sharks  that 
followed,  all  of  these  come  back  to  one  as  he 
walks  the  shore-wall  of  Mozambique.  From 
there  he  sees  the  slave-dhows  in  the  harbor, 
the  jungles  on  the  mainland  through  which 
the  slaves  came  by  the  thousands,  and  still 
come  one  by  one,  and  the  ancient  palaces  of 
the  Portuguese  governors,  dead  now  some 
hundreds  of  years,  to  whom  this  trade  in 
human  agony  brought  great  wealth,  and  no 
loss  of  honor. 

Mozambique  in  the  days  of  her  glory  was, 
with  Zanzibar,  the  great  slave-market  of  East 

Africa,  and  the  Portuguese  and  the  Arabs  who 

197 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

fattened  on  this  traffic  built  themselves  great 
houses  there,  and  a  fortress  capable,  in  the 
event  of  a  siege,  of  holding  the  garrison  and 
all  the  inhabitants  as  well.  To-day  the  slave- 
trade  brings  to  those  who  follow  it  more  of 
adventure  than  of  financial  profit,  but  the 
houses  and  the  official  palaces  and  the  fort- 
ress still  remain,  and  they  are,  in  color,  in- 
describably beautiful.  Blue  and  pink  and  red 
and  light  yellow  are  spread  over  their  high 
walls,  and  have  been  so  washed  and  chast- 
ened by  the  rain  and  sun,  that  the  whole  city 
has  taken  on  the  faint,  soft  tints  of  a  once 
brilliant  water-color.  The  streets  themselves 
are  unpeopled,  empty  and  strangely  silent. 
Their  silence  is  as  impressive  as  their  beauty. 
In  the  heat  of  the  day,  which  is  from  sunrise 
to  past  sunset,  you  see  no  one,  you  hear  no 
footfall,  no  voices,  no  rumble  of  wheels  or 
stamp  of  horses'  hoofs.  The  bare  feet  of  the 
native,  who  is  the  only  human  being  who 
dares  to  move  abroad,  makes  no  sound,  and 
in  Mozambique  there  are  no  carriages  and 
no  horses.  Two  bullock-carts,  which  collect 
scraps    and    refuse   from   the   white   staring 

streets,  are  the  only  carts  in  the  city,  and  with 

198 


3 
O 


O 


flH 


C 


u 


ALONG  THE  EAST  COAST 

the  exception  of  a  dozen  Vikshas  are  the  only 
wheeled  vehicles  the  inhabitants  have  seen. 

I  have  never  visited  a  city  which  so  impressed 
one  with  the  fact  that,  in  appearance,  it  had 
remained  just  as  it  was  four  hundred  years  be- 
fore. There  is  no  decay,  no  ruins,  no  sign  of 
disuse;  it  is,  on  the  contrary,  clean  and  bril- 
liantly beautiful  in  color,  with  dancing  blue 
waters  all  about  it,  and  with  enormous  palms 
moving  above  the  towering  white  walls  and  red 
tiled  roofs,  but  it  is  a  city  of  the  dead.  The 
open-work  iron  doors,  with  locks  as  large  as 
letter-boxes,  are  closed,  the  wooden  window- 
shutters  are  barred,  and  the  wares  in  the  shops 
are  hidden  from  the  sidewalk  by  heavy  curtains. 
There  is  a  park  filled  with  curious  trees  and 
with  flowers  of  gorgeous  color,  but  the  park  is 
as  deserted  as  a  cemetery;  along  the  principal 
streets  stretch  mosaic  pavements  formed  of 
great  blocks  of  white  and  black  stone,  they 
look  like  elongated  checker-boards,  but  no 
one  walks  upon  them,  and  though  there  are 
palaces  painted  blue,  and  government  build- 
ings in  Pompeiian  red,  and  churches  in  chaste 
gray  and  white,  there  are  no  sentries  to  guard 

the  palaces,  nor  no  black-robed  priests  enter 

199 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

or  leave  the  churches.  They  are  like  the 
palaces  of  a  theatre,  set  on  an  empty  stage, 
and  waiting  for  the  actors.  It  will  be  a  long 
time  before  the  actors  come  to  Mozambique. 
It  is,  and  will  remain,  a  city  of  the  fifteenth 
century.  It  is  now  only  a  relic  of  a  cruel  and 
barbarous  period,  when  the  Portuguese  gov- 
ernors, the  "gentlemen  adventurers,"  and  the 
Arab  slave-dealers,  under  its  blue  skies,  and 
hidden  within  its  barred  and  painted  walls, 
led  lives  of  magnificent  debauchery,  when  the 
tusks  of  ivory  were  piled  high  along  its  water- 
front, and  the  dhows  at  anchor  reeked  with 
slaves,  and  when  in  the  market-place,  where 
the  natives  now  sit  bargaining  over  a  bunch  of 
bananas  or  a  basket  of  dried  fish,  their  fore- 
fathers were  themselves  bought  and  sold. 

In  the  five  hundred  years  in  which  he  has 
claimed  the  shore  line  of  East  Africa  from 
south  of  Lorenzo  Marquez  to  north  of  Mo- 
zambique, and  many  hundreds  of  miles  in- 
land, the  Portuguese  has  been  the  dog  in  the 
manger  among  nations.  In  all  that  time  he 
has  done  nothing  to  help  the  land  or  the 
people  whom  he  pretends  to  protect,  and  he 
keeps  those  who  would  improve  both  from 


ALONG  THE  EAST  COAST 

gaining  any  hold  or  influence  over  either.  It 
is  doubtful  if  his  occupation  of  the  East  Coast 
can  endure  much  longer.  The  English  and 
the  Germans  now  surround  him  on  every 
side.  Even  handicapped  as  they  are  by  the 
lack  of  the  seaports  which  he  enjoys,  they 
have  forced  their  way  into  the  country  which 
lies  beyond  his  and  which  bounds  his  on  every 
side.  They  have  opened  up  this  country  with 
little  railroads,  with  lonely  lengths  of  telegraph 
wires,  and  with  their  launches  and  gunboats 
they  have  joined,  by  means  of  the  Zambesi 
and  Chinde  Rivers,  new  territories  to  the  great 
Indian  Ocean.  His  strip  of  land,  which  bars 
them  from  the  sea,  is  still  unsettled  and  un- 
safe, its  wealth  undeveloped,  its  people  un- 
tamed. He  sits  at  his  cafe  at  the  coast  and 
collects  custom-dues  and  sells  stamped  paper. 
For  fear  of  the  native  he  dares  not  march  five 
miles  beyond  his  sea-port  town,  and  the  white 
men  who  venture  inland  for  purposes  of  trade 
or  to  cultivate  plantations  do  so  at  their  own 
risk,  he  can  promise  them  no  protection. 

The  land  back  of  Mozambique  is  divided 
into  "holdings,"  and  the  rent  of  each  holding 
is  based  upon  the  number  of  native  huts  it 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

contains.  The  tax  per  hut  is  one  pound  t 
year,  and  thcs«  holdings  arc  leased  to  any 
Portuguese  who  promises  to  pay  the  com- 
bined taxes  of  all  the  huts.  He  also  engages 
to  cut  new  roads,  to  keep  those  already  made 
in  repair,  and  to  furnish  a  sufficient  number 
of  police  to  maintain  order.  The  lessees  of 
these  holdings  have  given  rise  to  many  and 
terrible  scandals.  In  the  majority  of  cases, 
the  lessee,  once  out  of  reach  of  all  authority 
and  of  public  opinion,  and  wielding  the  power 
of  life  and  death,  becomes  a  tyrant  and  task- 
master over  his  district,  taxing  the  natives  to 
five  and  ten  times  the  amount  which  each  is 
supposed  to  furnish,  and  treating  them  vir- 
tually as  his  bondsmen.  Up  along  the  Shire 
River,  the  lessees  punish  the  blacks  by  hang- 
ing them  from  a  tree  by  their  ankles  and 
beating  their  bare  backs  with  rhinoceros  hide, 
until,  as  it  has  been  described  to  me  by  a 
reputable  English  resident,  the  blood  runs  in 
a  stream  over  the  negro's  shoulders,  and  forms 
a  pool  beneath  his  eyes. 

You  hear  of  no  legitimate  enterprise  fos- 
tered by  these  lessees,  of  no  development  of 
natural  resources,  but,  instead,  you  are  told 


ALONG  THE  EAST  COAST 

tales  of  sickening  cruelty,  and  you  can  read 
in  the  consular  reports  others  quite  as  true; 
records  of  heartless  treatment  of  natives,  of 
neglect  of  great  resources,  and  of  hurried 
snatching  at  the  year's  crop  and  a  return  to 
the  Coast,  with  nothing  to  show  of  sustained 
effort  or  steady  development.  The  incom- 
petence of  Portugal  cannot  endure.  Now 
that  England  has  taken  the  Transvaal  from 
the  Boer,  she  will  find  the  seaport  of  Lorenzo 
Marquez  too  necessary  to  her  interests  to 
much  longer  leave  it  in  the  itching  palms  of 
the  Portuguese  officials.  Beira  she  also  needs 
to  feed  Rhodesia,  and  the  Zambesi  and 
Chinde  Rivers  to  supply  the  British  Central 
African  Company.  Farther  north,  the  Ger- 
mans will  find  that  if  they  mean  to  make 
German  Central  Africa  pay,  they  must  con- 
trol the  seaboard.  It  seems  inevitable  that, 
between  the  two  great  empires,  the  little 
kingdom  of  Portugal  will  be  crowded  out, 
and  having  failed  to  benefit  either  herself  or 
anyone  else  on  the  East  Coast,  she  will  with- 
draw from  it,  in  favor  of  those  who  are  fitter 
to  survive  her. 

There  is  no  more  interesting  contrast  along 

203 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

the  coast  of  East  Africa  than  that  presented 
by  the  colonies  of  England,  Germany,  and 
Portugal.  Of  these  three,  the  colonies  of  the 
Englishmen  are,  as  one  expects  to  find  them, 
the  healthiest,  the  busiest,  and  the  most  pros- 
perous. They  thrive  under  your  very  eyes; 
you  feel  that  they  were  established  where  they 
are,  not  by  accident,  not  to  gratify  a  national 
vanity  or  a  ruler's  ambition,  but  with  fore- 
sight and  with  knowledge,  and  with  the  deter- 
mination to  make  money;  and  that  they  will 
increase  and  flourish  because  they  are  situ- 
ated where  the  natives  and  settlers  have 
something  to  sell,  and  where  the  men  can 
bring,  in  return,  something  the  natives  and 
colonials  wish  to  buy.  Port  Elizabeth,  Dur- 
ban, East  London,  and  Zanzibar  belong  to 
this  prosperous  class,  which  gives  good  reason 
for  the  faith  of  those  who  founded  them. 

On  the  other  hand,  as  opposed  to  these, 
there  are  the  settlements  of  the  Portuguese, 
rotten  and  corrupt,  and  the  German  settle- 
ments of  Dar  Es  Salaam  and  Tanga  which 
have  still  to  prove  their  right  to  exist.  Out- 
wardly, to  the  eye,  they  are  model  settlements. 

Dar  Es  Salaam,  in  particular,  is  a  beautiful 

204 


ALONG  THE  EAST  COAST 

and  perfectly  appointed  colonial  town.  In 
the  care  in  which  it  is  laid  out,  in  the  excel- 
lence of  its  sanitary  arrangements,  in  its 
cleanliness,  and  in  the  magnificence  of  its 
innumerable  official  residences,  and  in  their 
sensible  adaptability  to  the  n6eds  of  the  cli- 
mate, one  might  be  deceived  iilto  believing  that 
Dar  Es  Salaam  is  the  beautiful  gateway  of  a 
thriving  and  busy  colony.  But  there  are  no 
ramparts  of  merchandise  along  her  wharves, 
no  bulwarks  of  strangely  scented  bales  block- 
ing her  water-front;  no  lighters  push  hur- 
riedly from  the  shore  to  meet  the  ship,  al- 
though she  is  a  German  ship,  Or  to  receive  her 
cargo  of  articles  "made  in  Germany."  On 
the  contrary,  her  freight  is-  unloaded  at  the 
English  ports,  and  taken  on  at  English  ports. 
And  the  German  traders  who  send  their  mer- 
chandise to  Hamburg  in  her  hold  come  over 
the  side  at  Zanzibar,  at  Durban,  and  at  Aden, 
where  the  English  merchants  find  in  them 
fierce  competitors.  There  is  nothing  which 
goes  so  far  to  prove  the  falsity  of  the  saying 
that  "trade  follows  the  flag"  as  do  these 
model  German  colonies  with  their  barracks, 

governor's  palace,  officers'  clubs,  public  pleas- 

205 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

ure  parks,  and  with  no  trade;  and  the  Eng- 
lish colonies,  where  the  German  merchants 
remain,  and  where,  under  the  English  flag, 
they  grow  steadily  rich.  The  German  Em- 
peror, believing  that  colonies  are  a  source  of 
strength  to  an  empire,  rather  than  the  weak- 
ness that  they  are,  has  raised  the  German 
flag  in  Central  East  Africa,  but  the  ships  of 
the  German  East  African  Company,  subsi- 
dized by  him,  carry  their  merchandize  to  the 
English  ports,  and  his  German  subjects  re- 
main where  they  can  make  the  most  money. 
They  do  not  move  to  those  ports  where  the 
flag  of  their  country  would  wave  over  them. 

Dar  Es  Salaam,  although  it  lacks  the  one 
thing  needful  to  make  it  a  model  settle- 
ment, possesses  all  the  other  things  which 
are  needful,  and  many  which  are  pure  luxuries. 
Its  residences,  as  I  have  said,  have  been  built 
after  the  most  approved  scientific  principles 
of  ventilation  and  sanitation.  In  no  tropical 
country  have  I  seen  buildings  so  admirably 
adapted  to  the  heat  and  climatic  changes  and 
at  the  same  time  more  in  keeping  with  the 
surrounding   scenery.     They   are   handsome, 

cool-looking,   white    and    clean,   with   broad 

206 


ALONG  THE  EAST  COAST 

verandas,  high  walls,  and  false  roofs  under 
which  currents  of  air  arc  lured  in  spite  of 
themselves.  The  residences  are  set  back 
along  the  high  bank  which  faces  the  bay. 
In  front  of  them  is  a  public  promenade, 
newly  planted  shade-trees  arch  over  it,  and 
royal  palms  reach  up  to  it  from  the  very 
waters  of  the  harbor.  At  one  end  of  this 
semicircle  are  the  barracks  of  the  Soudanese 
soldiers,  and  at  the  other  is  the  official  palace 
of  the  governor.  Everything  in  the  settle- 
ment is  new,  and  everything  is  built  on  the 
scale  of  a  city,  and  with  the  idea  of  accom- 
modating a  great  number  of  people.  Hotels 
and  cafes,  better  than  any  one  finds  in  the 
older  settlements  along  the  coast,  are  arranged 
on  the  water-front,  and  there  is  a  church 
capable  of  seating  the  entire  white  popula- 
tion at  one  time.  If  the  place  is  to  grow,  it 
can  do  so  only  through  trade,  and  when  trade 
really  comes  all  these  palaces  and  cafes  and 
barracks  which  occupy  the  entire  water-front 
will  have  to  be  pushed  back  to  make  way  for 
warehouses  and  custom-house  sheds.  At  pres- 
ent it  is  populated  only  by  officials,  and,  I 

believe,  twelve  white  women. 

207 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

You  feel  that  it  is  an  experiment,  that  it 
has  been  sent  out  like  a  box  of  children's 
building  blocks,  and  set  up  carefully  on  this 
beautiful  harbor.  All  that  Dar  Es  Salaam 
needs  now  is  trade  and  emigrants.  At  present 
it  is  a  show  place,  and  might  be  exhibited  at 
a  world's  fair  as  an  example  of  a  model  village. 

In  writing  of  Zanzibar  I  am  embarrassed 
by  the  knowledge  that  I  am  not  an  unpre- 
judiced witness.  I  fell  in  love  with  Zanzibar 
at  first  sight,  and  the  more  I  saw  of  it  the  more 
I  wanted  to  take  my  luggage  out  of  the  ship's 
hold  and  cable  to  my  friends  to  try  and  have 
me  made  Vice-Consul  to  Zanzibar  through 
all  succeeding  administrations. 

Zanzibar  runs  back  abruptly  from  a  white 
beach  in  a  succession  of  high  white  walls. 
It  glistens  and  glares,  and  dazzles  you;  the 
sand  at  your  feet  is  white,  the  city  itself  is 
white,  the  robes  of  the  people  are  white.  It 
has  no  public  landing-pier.  Your  rowboat 
is  run  ashore  on  a  white  shelving  beach,  and 
you  face  an  impenetrable  mass  of  white  walls. 
The  blue  waters  are  behind  you,  the  lofty 
fortress-like  facade  before  you,  and  a  strip  of 
white  sand  is  at  your  feet. 

ao8 


ALONG  THE  EAST  COAST 

And  while  you  are  wondering  where  this 
hidden  city  may  be,  a  kind  resident  takes  you 
by  the  hand  and  pilots  you  through  a  narrow 
crack  in  the  rampart,  along  a  twisting  fissure 
between  white-washed  walls  where  the  sun 
cannot  reach,  past  great  black  doorways  of 
carved  oak,  and  out  suddenly  into  the  light 
and  laughter  and  roar  of  Zanzibar. 

In  the  narrow  streets  are  all  the  colors  of 
the  Orient,  gorgeous,  unshaded,  and  violent; 
cobalt  blue,  greens,  and  reds  on  framework, 
windows,  and  doorways;  red  and  yellow  in 
the  awnings  and  curtains  of  the  bazaars,  and 
orange  and  black,  red  and  white,  yellow,  dark 
blue,  and  purple,  in  the  long  shawls  of  the 
women.  It  is  the  busiest,  and  the  brightest 
and  richest  in  color  of  all  the  ports  along  the 
East  African  coast.  Were  it  not  for  its 
narrow  streets  and  its  towering  walls  it  would 
be  a  place  of  perpetual  sunshine.  Everybody 
is  either  actively  busy,  or  contentedly  idle.  It 
is  all  movement,  noise,  and  glitter,  everyone 
is  telling  everyone  else  to  make  way  before 
him;  the  Indian  merchants  beseech  you  from 
the  open  bazaars;  their  children,  swathed  in 
gorgeous    silks   and   hung  with   jewels    and 

ao9 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

bangles,  stumble  under  your  feet,  the  Sultan's 
troops  assail  you  with  fife  and  drum,  and  the 
black  women,  wrapped  below  their  bare 
shoulders  in  the  colors  of  the  butterfly,  and 
with  teeth  and  brows  dyed  purple,  crowd 
you  to  the  wall.  Outside  the  city  there  are 
long  and  wonderful  roads  between  groves  of 
the  bulky  mango-tree  of  richest  darkest  green 
and  the  bending  palm,  shading  deserted 
palaces  of  former  Sultans,  temples  of  the 
Indian  worshippers,  native  huts,  and  the  white- 
walled  country  residences  and  curtained  veran- 
das of  the  white  exiles.  It  is  absurd  to  write 
them  down  as  exiles,  for  it  is  a  Mohammedan 
Paradise  to  which  they  have  been  exiled. 

The  exiles  themselves  will  tell  you  that  the 
reason  you  think  Zanzibar  is  a  paradise,  is 
because  you  have  your  steamer  ticket  in  your 
pocket.  But  that  retort  shows  their  lack  of 
imagination,  and  a  vast  ingratitude  to  those 
who  have  preceded  them.  For  the  charm  of 
Zanzibar  lies  in  the  fact  that  while  the  white 
men  have  made  it  healthy  and  clean,  have 
given  it  good  roads,  good  laws,  protection  for 
the  slaves,  quick  punishment  for  the  slave- 
dealers,  and  a  firm  government  under  a  benign 


H.  S.  H.  Hamud  bin  Muhamad  bin  Said,  the  Late  Sultan  of  Zanzibar. 


ALONG  THE  EAST  COAST 

and  gentle  Sultan,  they  have  done  all  of  this 
without  destroying  one  flash  of  its  local  color, 
or  one  throb  of  its  barbaric  life,  which  is  the 
showy,  sunshiny,  and  sumptuous  life  of  the 
Far  East.  The  good  things  of  civilization  are 
there,  but  they  are  unobtrusive,  and  the  evils 
of  civilization  appear  not  at  all,  the  native 
does  not  wear  a  derby  hat  with  a  kimona,  as 
he  does  in  Japan,  nor  off^er  you  souvenirs  of 
Zanzibar  manufactured  in  Birmingham ;  Ren- 
ter's telegrams  at  the  club  and  occasional 
steamers  alone  connect  his  white  masters  with 
the  outer  world,  and  so  infrequent  is  the  visit- 
ing stranger  that  the  local  phrase-book  for 
those  who  wish  to  converse  in  the  native  tongue 
is  compiled  chiefly  for  the  convenience  of 
midshipmen  when  searching  a  slave-dhow. 

Zanzibar  is  an  "Arabian  Nights"  city,  a 
comic-opera  capital,  a  most  difficult  city  to 
take  seriously.  There  is  not  a  street,  or  any 
house  in  any  street,  that  does  not  suggest 
in  its  architecture  and  decoration  the  un- 
trammelled fancy  of  the  scenic  artist.  You 
feel  sure  that  the  latticed  balconies  are  canvas, 
that  the  white  adobe  walls  are  supported  from 
behind   by   braces,   that   the   sunshine   is   a 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

carbon  light,  that  the  chorus  of  boatmen  who 
hail  you  on  landing  will  reappear  immediately 
costumed  as  the  Sultan's  body-guard,  that 
the  women  bearing  water-jars  on  their  shoul- 
ders will  come  on  in  the  next  scene  as  slaves 
of  the  harem,  and  that  the  national  anthem 
will  prove  to  be  Sousa's  Typical  Tune  of 
Zanzibar. 

Several  hundred  years  ago  the  Sultans  of 
Zanzibar  grew  powerful  and  wealthy  through 
exporting  slaves  and  ivory  from  the  mainland. 
These  were  not  two  separate  industries,  but 
one  was  developed  by  the  other  and  was 
dependent  upon  it.  The  procedure  was  bru- 
tally simple.  A  slave-trader,  having  first  paid 
his  tribute  to  the  Sultan,  crossed  to  the  main- 
land, and  marching  into  the  interior  made  his 
bargain  with  one  of  the  local  chiefs  for  so 
much  ivory,  and  for  so  many  men  to  carry  it 
down  to  the  coast.  Without  some  such  means 
of  transport  there  could  have  been  no  bargain, 
so  the  chief  who  was  anxious  to  sell  would 
select  a  village  which  had  not  paid  him  the 
taxes  due  him,  and  bid  the  trader  help  him- 
self to  what  men  he  found  there.  Then  would 
follow  a  hideous  night  attack,  a  massacre  of 


ALONG  THE  EAST  COAST 

women  and  children,  and  the  taking  prisoners 
of  all  able-bodied  males.  These  men,  chained 
together  in  long  lines,  and  each  bearing  a 
heavy  tooth  of  ivory  upon  his  shoulder,  would 
be  whipped  down  to  the  coast.  It  was  only 
when  they  had  carried  the  ivory  there,  and 
their  work  was  finished,  that  the  idea  presented 
itself  of  selling  them  as  well  as  the  ivory. 
Later,  these  bearers  became  of  equal  value 
with  the  ivory,  and  the  raiding  of  native 
villages  and  the  capture  of  men  and  women 
to  be  sold  into  slavery  developed  into  a  great 
industry.  The  industry  continues  fitfully  to- 
day, but  it  is  carried  on  under  great  difficulties, 
and  at  a  risk  of  heavy  punishments.  What 
is  called  "domestic  slavery"  is  recognized  on 
the  island  of  Zanzibar,  the  vast  clove  planta- 
tions which  lie  back  of  the  port  employing 
many  hundreds  of  these  domestic  slaves. 
It  is  not  to  free  these  from  their  slight  bondage 
that  the  efforts  of  those  who  are  trying  to 
suppress  the  slave-trade  is  to-day  directed, 
but  to  prevent  others  from  being  added  to 
their  number.  What  slave-trading  there  is 
at  present  is  by  Arabs  and  Indians.  They 
convey  the  slaves  in  dhows  from  the  mainland 

213 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

to  Madagascar,  Arabia,  or  southern  Persia, 
and  to  the  Island  of  Pemba,  which  Hes  north 
of  Zanzibar,  and  only  fifteen  miles  from  the 
mainland.  If  a  slave  can  be  brought  this 
short  distance  in  safety  he  can  be  sold  for 
five  hundred  dollars;  on  the  mainland  he  is 
not  worth  more  than  fifteen  dollars.  The 
channels,  and  the  mouths  of  rivers,  and  the 
little  bays  opening  from  the  Island  of  Pemba 
are  patrolled  more  or  less  regularly  by  British 
gunboats,  and  junior  officers  in  charge  of  a 
cutter  and  a  crew  of  half  a  dozen  men,  are 
detached  from  these  for  a  few  months  at  a 
time  on  "boat  service."  It  seems  to  be  an 
unprofitable  pursuit,  for  one  officer  told  me 
that  during  his  month  of  boat  service  he  had 
boarded  and  searched  three  hundred  dhows, 
which  is  an  average  of  ten  a  day,  and  found 
slaves  on  only  one  of  them.  But  as,  on  this 
occasion,  he  rescued  four  slaves,  and  the 
slavers,  moreover,  showed  fight,  and  wounded 
him  and  two  of  his  boat's  crew,  he  was  more 
than  satisfied. 

The  trade  in  ivory,  which  has  none  of  these 
restrictions  upon  it,  still  flourishes,  and  the 
cool,  dark  warerooms  of  Zanzibar  are  stored 

214 


ALONG  THE  EAST  COAST 

high  with  it.  In  a  corner  of  one  httle  cellar 
they  showed  us  twenty-five  thousand  dollars 
worth  of  these  tusks  piled  up  as  carelessly  as 
though  they  were  logs  in  a  wood-shed.  One 
of  the  most  curious  sights  in  Zanzibar  is  a  line 
of  Zanzibari  boys,  each  balancing  a  great 
tusk  on  his  shoulder,  worth  from  five  hundred 
to  two  thousand  dollars,  and  which  is  unpro- 
tected except  for  a  piece  of  coarse  sacking. 

The  largest  exporters  of  ivory  in  the  world 
are  at  Zanzibar,  and  though  probably  few 
people  know  it,  the  firm  which  carries  on  this 
business  belongs  to  New  York  City,  and  has 
been  in  the  ivory  trade  with  India  and  Africa 
from  as  far  back  as  the  fifties.  In  their  house 
at  Zanzibar  they  have  entertained  every  dis- 
tinguished African  explorer,  and  the  stories 
its  walls  have  heard  of  native  wars,  pirate 
dhows,  slave-dealers,  the  English  occupation, 
and  terrible  marches  through  the  jungles  of 
the  Congo,  would  make  valuable  and  pictur- 
esque history.  The  firm  has  always  held  a 
semi-official  position,  for  the  reason  that  the 
United  States  Consul  at  Zanzibar,  who  should 
speak  at  least  Swahili  and  Portuguese,  is  in- 
variably chosen  for  the  post  from  a  drug-store 

215 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

in  Yankton,  Dakota,  or  a  post-office  in  Can- 
ton, Ohio.  Consequently,  on  arriving  at  Zan- 
zibar he  becomes  homesick,  and  his  first 
official  act  is  to  cable  his  resignation,  and  the 
State  Department  instructs  whoever  happens 
to  be  general  manager  of  the  ivory  house  to 
perform  the  duties  of  acting-consul.  So,  the 
ivory  house  has  nearly  always  held  the  eagle  of 
the  consulate  over  its  doorway.  The  manager 
of  the  ivory  house,  who  at  the  time  of  our 
visit  was  also  consul,  is  Harris  Robbins  Childs. 
Mr.  Childs  is  well  known  in  New  York  City, 
is  a  member  of  many  clubs  there,  and  speaks 
at  least  five  languages.  He  understands  the 
native  tongue  of  Zanzibar  so  well  that  when 
the  Prime  Minister  of  the  Sultan  took  us  to 
the  palace  to  pay  our  respects,  Childs  talked 
the  language  so  much  better  than  did  the 
Sultan's  own  Prime  Minister  that  there  was 
in  consequence  much  joking  and  laughing. 
The  Sultan  then  was  a  most  dignified,  intelli- 
gent, and  charming  old  gentleman.  He  was 
popular  both  with  his  own  people,  who  loved 
him  with  a  religious  fervor,  and  with  the  Eng- 
lish, who  unobtrusively  conducted  his  affairs. 

There  have  been  sultans  who  have  acted 
216 


ALONG  THE  EAST  COAST 

less  wisely  than  does  Hamud  bin  Muhamad 
bin  Said.  A  few  years  ago  one  of  these,  Said 
Khaled,  defied  the  British  Empire  as  repre- 
sented by  several  gunboats,  and  dared  them 
to  fire  on  his  ship  of  war,  a  tramp  steamer 
which  he  had  converted  into  a  royal  yacht. 
The  gunboats  were  anchored  about  two 
hundred  yards  from  the  palace,  which  stands 
at  the  water's  edge,  and  at  the  time  agreed 
upon,  they  sank  the  Sultan's  ship  of  war  in  the 
short  space  of  three  minutes,  and  in  a  brief 
bombardment  destroyed  the  greater  part  of 
his  palace.  The  ship  of  war  still  rests  where 
she  sank,  and  her  topmasts  peer  above 
the  water  only  three  hundred  yards  distant 
from  the  windows  of  the  new  palace.  They 
serve  as  a  constant  warning  to  all  future 
sultans. 

The  new  palace  is  of  somewhat  too  modern 
architecture,  and  is  not  nearly  as  dignified  as 
are  the  massive  white  walls  of  the  native 
houses  which  surround  it.  But  within  it  is 
a  fairy  palace,  hung  with  silk  draperies, 
tapestries,  and  hand-painted  curtains;  the 
floors  are  covered  with  magnificent  rugs  from 

Persia  and  India,  and  the  reception-room  is 

217 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

crowded  with  treasures  of  ebony,  ivory,  lacquer 
work,  and  gold  and  silver.  There  were  two 
thrones  made  of  silver  dragons,  with  many 
scales,  and  studded  with  jewels.  The  Sultan 
did  not  seem  to  mind  our  openly  admiring 
his  treasures,  and  his  attendants,  who  stood 
about  him  in  gorgeous-colored  silks  heavy 
with  gold  embroideries,  were  evidently  pleased 
with  the  deep  impression  they  made  upon  the 
visitors.  The  Sultan  was  very  gentle  and 
courteous  and  human,  especially  in  the  pleas- 
ure he  took  over  his  son  and  heir,  who  then 
was  at  school  in  England,  and  who,  on  the 
death  of  his  father,  succeeded  him.  He 
seemed  very  much  gratified  when  we  suggested 
that  there  was  no  better  training-place  for  a 
boy  than  an  English  public  school;  as  Amer- 
icans, he  thought  our  opinion  must  be 
unprejudiced.  Before  he  sent  us  away,  he 
gave  Childs,  and  each  of  us,  a  photograph 
of  himself,  one  of  which  is  reproduced  in 
this  book. 

Our  next  port  was  the  German  settlement  of 
Tanga.  We  arrived  there  just  as  a  blood-red 
sun   was   setting   behind   great   and   gloomy 

mountains.     The  place  itself  was  bathed  in 

218 


ALONG  THE  EAST  COAST 

damp  hot  vapors,  and  surrounded  even  to  the 
water's  edge  by  a  steaming  jungle.  It  was 
more  hke  what  we  expected  Africa  to  be  than 
was  any  other  place  we  had  visited,  and  the 
proper  touch  of  local  color  was  supplied  by  a 
trader,  who  gave  as  his  reason  for  leaving  us 
so  early  in  the  evening  that  he  needed  sleep, 
as  on  the  night  before  at  his  camp  three 
lions  had  kept  him  awake  until  morning. 

The  bubonic  plague  prevented  our  landing 
at  other  ports.  We  saw  them  only  through 
field-glasses  from  the  ship's  side,  so  that  there 
is,  in  consequence,  much  that  I  cannot  write 
of  the  East  Coast  of  Africa.  But  the  trip, 
which  allows  one  merely  to  nibble  at  the 
Coast,  is  worth  taking  again  when  the  bubonic 
plague  has  passed  away.  It  was  certainly 
worth  taking  once.  If  I  have  failed  to  make 
that  apparent,  the  fault  lies  with  the  writer. 
It  is  certainly  not  the  fault  of  the  East  Coast, 
not  the  fault  of  the  Indian  Ocean,  that  "sets 
and  smiles,  so  soft,  so  bright,  so  blooming 
blue,"  or  of  the  exiles  and  "remittance  men," 
or  of  the  engineers  who  are  building  the 
railroad   from   Cape   Town   to  Cairo,  or  of 

any  lack  of  interest  which  the  East  Coast 

219 


THE  CONGO  AND  COASTS  OF  AFRICA 

presents  in  its  problem  of  trade,  of  conquest, 
and  of,  among  nations,  the  survival  of  the 
fittest. 


220 


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